Dive Temporary:
- New Mexico’s lawyer basic is searching for to dam a $1.9 million severance cost to Western New Mexico College’s outgoing president, calling it “a gross misuse of funds appropriated to help the training of Western’s pupil inhabitants.”
- Lawyer Normal Raúl Torrez filed an emergency movement Monday asking a state courtroom to forestall Western New Mexico from paying severance to President Joseph Shepard till an audit is accomplished of his college spending.
- Shepard resigned from the function in December amid scrutiny over his use of college funds, although he’ll keep on as a enterprise professor and president emeritus. His resignation is efficient Jan. 15.
Dive Perception:
Shepard’s resignation adopted a November letter from the state auditor discovering he excessively spent college funds on journey and furnishings. The company described an total “regarding lack of compliance with established college insurance policies” by college leaders, together with trustees.
New Mexico’s governor has additionally referred to as for the resignation of the college’s complete board of regents. Since late December, the board’s prime two leaders have resigned. A spokesperson for the college instructed Increased Ed Dive on Monday that every one regents have been anticipated to resign.
In his Monday movement, the lawyer basic famous that the regents terminated Shepard’s earlier contract and voted on a brand new employment settlement for Shepard on Dec. 20 — the day Shepard introduced his resignation.
The brand new settlement, negotiated with two regents and permitted by the total board, contains the $1.9 million severance cost in addition to a $200,000 annual professor’s wage and an eight-month paid sabbatical.
Torrez’s submitting identified that Shepard’s earlier contract supplied avenues for the president’s exit. Firing Shepard with out trigger would have yielded severance of slightly below $600,000 — lower than a 3rd of what the board agreed to pay him beneath the contract permitted in December. It might have additionally terminated him with trigger and paid nothing beneath the outdated contract.
Finally Shepard resigned, a transfer that may have warranted no severance beneath the earlier settlement.
“Previous to terminating the prevailing Employment Settlement with Dr. Shepard, the Board didn’t publicly acknowledge, clarify, or maintain any dialogue relating to the number of different termination choices discovered within the present Employment Settlement a lot much less clarify their causes for not exercising any of these choices or for taking this motion with audits pending,” Torrez stated within the movement.
The college declined to remark Tuesday, citing the pending litigation.
Western New Mexico’s regents agreed to the contract and cost — set to be made by Jan. 15, per the brand new settlement — whereas college officers are being investigated over Shepard’s use of college funds and publicly issued bank cards. That features a state-level audit in addition to a self-directed audit initiated by Western New Mexico.
In a press release, Torrez referred to as the severance contract “an egregious misuse of public funds and a betrayal of the Board’s accountability to behave in the very best curiosity of the college and its college students.”
“The Board’s try and squander public funds appropriated for the good thing about WNMU college students, and the encompassing communities violates their authorized duties of undivided loyalty to serve the general public good and have to be stopped,” he added.
The lawyer basic requested for an evidentiary listening to previous to Jan. 15 and a short lived restraining order stopping the severance cost earlier than then. He additional requested for an injunction that may block the board from paying Shepard beneath the brand new contract till the self-directed audit was finalized.