Governor works to replace ‘tone-deaf’ regents at Western New Mexico University
SILVER CITY, N.M. (AP) — More members of the embattled board of regents at Western New Mexico University have resigned, a confirmation that came Tuesday during roll call at a meeting scheduled to address the departure of the university’s president amid fallout from wasteful spending and lax financial oversight.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in a year-end letter to the regents had asked for their immediate resignations, saying new leadership was needed to ensure the Silver City-based university can regain its “equilibrium and once again serve its students first and foremost.”
Only the student regent and university President Joseph Shepard were present for Tuesday’s meeting, leaving too few board members to conduct business. The chairwoman of the five-member board resigned last week along with one other regent. The other two turned in their papers Tuesday.
Lujan Grisham on Tuesday called the board “tone-deaf” for approving a lucrative severance package for Shepard, suggesting that the dollar amount could have addressed food insecurity across the entire student body for a full year.
“We must ensure that generous payouts no longer reward poor performance while maintaining our ability to attract qualified leaders,” she said, noting that she planned to work with state lawmakers to change how severance packages are structured at New Mexico’s public institutions.
The shakeup on the board follows the announcement that Shepard would resign as university president after an investigation by the state auditor’s office found more than $363,000 in wasteful spending and improper use of public funds. Top state officials have said that university officials and regents failed to uphold their fiduciary responsibilities.
The case also has the attention of New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, who on Monday filed an emergency motion in state district court seeking to put on hold a $1.9 million payout from Western New Mexico University to Shepard that is part of a severance package.
Shepard also is guaranteed a spot as a tenured faculty member, earning at least $200,000 annually for five years. He can serve remotely and was given an eight-month sabbatical with full pay.
The attorney general’s motion states that the university agreed to pay Shepard more than three times what it would have been legally required to pay had it terminated his employment without cause.
The court filing pointed to the timing and lack of transparency in the board’s negotiation of what Torrez has called an “unjustifiable golden parachute.”
A more comprehensive forensic audit still is underway. That audit was requested in December 2023 by Shepard and the regents with approval by the state auditor.
Lawmakers started raising questions in 2023 about Shepard’s spending on international travel and high-end furniture, along with wife Valerie Plame’s use of a university credit card. Plame is a former CIA operations officer who ran unsuccessfully for New Mexico’s 3rd Congressional District in the 2020 Democratic primary.
In selecting new regents for the university, Lujan Grisham said she wants to usher in a new era of accountability.
“All public universities in New Mexico must uphold their fundamental fiscal responsibility to the people of this state and the students they serve,” she said.
