SILVER CITY, N.M. — The ongoing turmoil at Western New Mexico University has seen further resignations from its board of regents, confirmed during a roll call at a meeting aimed at addressing the recent resignation of the university’s president amidst concerns over excessive spending and poor financial management.
Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, in a letter sent at the end of the year, urged the regents to resign immediately, emphasizing that fresh leadership is crucial for the Silver City university to regain stability and prioritize its students once again.
During the Tuesday meeting, attendance was limited to just the student regent and university President Joseph Shepard, resulting in an inability to conduct any official business due to the lack of a quorum. The chairwoman of the five-member board had resigned the previous week along with one other regent, and two more members submitted their resignations on Tuesday.
In her remarks on Tuesday, Lujan Grisham criticized the board as “tone-deaf” for sanctioning a generous severance package for Shepard, implying that the money allocated could have been better spent addressing food insecurity issues affecting students for an entire year.
“It’s essential that we ensure that lavish financial packages do not reward underperformance while still keeping our capacity to attract competent leaders,” she stated, adding her intentions to collaborate with state lawmakers to reform how severance packages are arranged at public institutions in New Mexico.
This overhaul comes in the wake of an investigation by the state auditor’s office which uncovered over $363,000 in unnecessary expenditures and improper usage of public funds, prompting Shepard’s resignation as university president. High-ranking state officials have indicated that both university leaders and regents did not fulfill their fiduciary duties.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez is also involved, having filed an emergency motion in state district court on Monday to halt a $1.9 million payment to Shepard that forms part of his severance deal.
As part of his severance, Shepard is assured a position as a tenured faculty member with an annual salary of at least $200,000 for five years. He has the option to work remotely and was granted an eight-month paid sabbatical.
According to the attorney general’s filing, the university agreed to pay Shepard more than three times the legal requirement that would have been applicable had his employment been terminated without just cause.
The motion raised concerns about the timing and the opaque nature of the negotiations surrounding what Torrez described as an “unjustifiable golden parachute.” A more detailed forensic audit is also currently in progress, initiated in December 2023 by Shepard and the regents with the state auditor’s backing.
Questions regarding Shepard’s expenditures on international trips and luxury furniture had begun surfacing among lawmakers in 2023, as well as issues related to the use of a university credit card by his wife, Valerie Plame, a former CIA officer who ran for the New Mexico’s 3rd Congressional District in the Democratic primary in 2020.
As new regents are sought for the university, Lujan Grisham expressed her desire to promote a fresh phase of accountability within the institution. “All public universities in New Mexico must adhere to their essential fiscal obligations to the residents of our state and the students they support,” she concluded.
