Dive Transient:
- New Mexico’s lawyer normal is searching for to dam a $1.9 million severance fee to Western New Mexico College’s outgoing president, calling it “a gross misuse of funds appropriated to help the schooling of Western’s pupil inhabitants.”
- Legal professional Normal Raúl Torrez filed an emergency movement Monday asking a state court docket 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 known as for the resignation of the college’s whole 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 each one regents had been anticipated to resign.
In his Monday movement, the lawyer normal 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 authorised by the complete board, contains the $1.9 million severance fee 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 offered 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 below the contract authorised in December. It might have additionally terminated him with trigger and paid nothing below the previous contract.
Finally Shepard resigned, a transfer that will have warranted no severance below the earlier settlement.
“Previous to terminating the prevailing Employment Settlement with Dr. Shepard, the Board didn’t publicly acknowledge, clarify, or maintain any dialogue concerning the number of different termination choices discovered within the current 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 mentioned within the movement.
The college declined to remark Tuesday, citing the pending litigation.
Western New Mexico’s regents agreed to the contract and fee — 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 known as the severance contract “an egregious misuse of public funds and a betrayal of the Board’s duty to behave in one of the best curiosity of the college and its college students.”
“The Board’s try to squander public funds appropriated for the advantage of WNMU college students, and the encircling communities violates their authorized duties of undivided loyalty to serve the general public good and should be stopped,” he added.
The lawyer normal requested for an evidentiary listening to previous to Jan. 15 and a short lived restraining order stopping the severance fee earlier than then. He additional requested for an injunction that will block the board from paying Shepard below the brand new contract till the self-directed audit was finalized.
