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SILVER CITY, N.M. — New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez filed a motion to halt a $1.9 million buyout for the departing president of Western New Mexico University.

Joseph Shepard stepped down as president of WNMU after a state audit found he spent $316,000 of university money on lavish international trips, high-end furniture and other items over the course of several years. During the investigation, the state auditor’s office blamed university management and the WNMU Board of Regents for not upholding their responsibilities and enforcing travel rules. 

After this, the board approved a $1,909,788 buyout last month for Shepard.

AG Torrez argues the payment isn’t supported by Shepard’s contract and “is unconscionable as a violation of public policy and the public interest.”

“This payment is an egregious misuse of public funds and a betrayal of the Board’s responsibility to act in the best interest of the university and its students,” Torrez said in a statement Monday. “Dr. Shepard voluntarily resigned, and the Board had ample opportunity to negotiate a reasonable or no-cost separation agreement. Instead, they chose to pledge nearly $2 million in taxpayer money without justification or consideration of the public good.” 

The New Mexico Department of Justice is requesting the court temporarily block the $1.9 million payment before a hearing can happen. The NMDOJ is requesting the hearing be held before Jan. 15 – the deadline for the payment – or issue an ex-parte order until the hearing can be scheduled. They are also requesting the court prohibit the board from disbursing the payment until a special audit – requested by WNMU, the regents and Shepard – is complete and a report is available.

Shepard’s buyout is just one part of the board-approved separation agreement. The agreement also calls for Shepard to get $200,000 guaranteed for five years as a newly-tenured faculty member once he returns from an eight-month sabbatical. The sabbatical would begin the day he officially resigns. Then, when he returns, he will work remotely.

The agreement drew ire from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who sent a letter demanding the entire board step down. Before siding with the WNMU Faculty Senate in a unanimous vote of no confidence in the board, faculty senate president Phillip Schoenberg said he heard from the board president that the regents would comply with the governor’s order.

The faculty senate also called on the regents to rescind Shepard’s separation agreement.

New Mexico Higher Education Secretary Stephanie Rodriguez described the buyout as “gross negligence and mismanagement of taxpayer funds.” Her department is also investigating this.

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This article was originally published by Source New Mexico.

President Joe Biden issued two major disaster declarations in New Mexico in 2024, the first time since 2014 that pronouncement has been made twice in the same year, according to federal data.

First, two wildfires erupted in the Ruidoso area in June. The South Fork and Salt fires and ensuing floods destroyed more than 1,500 homes and caused the deaths of two people. Then, in October, heavy rains caused devastating flooding in Roswell, a disaster that resulted in at least two deaths, as well. 

In both instances, and for smaller emergencies before and in-between them, the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management responded. 

Disasters of that severity require a multi-faceted response and coordination between numerous officials and local and state agencies. Emergency Management was at the center of all that, running into disaster zones, marshaling resources and fielding questions at angry town halls.

Recently, Deputy Secretary Ali Rye reflected on a year of disasters in an interview with Source New Mexico. She described a tiring year and a small-but-mighty agency that is struggling to keep up with the “before,” “during” and “after” disasters because there have been so many. 

“I mean, my staff is spent. I think New Mexicans are spent,” Rye said. “I think everyone is just, they’re tired, and they’re constantly in this response or recovery mode.”

Before 2022, the state had a reprieve of nearly a decade from major disaster declarations, according to Federal Emergency Management Agency data, excluding the COVID-19 pandemic. (Rye doesn’t really count the pandemic she said, “Because everybody got impacted by COVID.”)

The 2022 federally declared disaster was a series of wildfires burning throughout the state simultaneously. On a single spring day in 2022, 20 wildfires were burning at the same time. 

That’s the same year that the state experienced the two biggest fires in its history – the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire in northern New Mexico and the Black Fire in southern New Mexico. Both burned more than 300,000 acres. 

The trial by fires, while devastating for communities and exhausting for staff, has at least been educational, Rye said. 

“I will tell you, though, we have learned a lot over the last two years,” she said. “And I think it showed this year with us being very proactive in areas that we knew were going to get hit, or us planning ahead for fire season, for monsoon season in a more proactive way.”

That meant meeting with residents and local officials in disaster-prone areas, purchasing needed equipment and staging it there in advance, Rye said. 

The ongoing fallout from the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire shows the long tail – and cumulative nature – of disasters. More than two years later, even as disasters unfolded in southern New Mexico, staff was still driving all over the state, offering state case managers to help northern fire victims navigate a tangle of bureaucracy and support to local officials still trying to rebuild roads or mitigate against future floods. 

“The same staff that help in Roswell and in Ruidoso are also the same staff that help in Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon,” Rye said. “And so my staff, I mean, they travel all over the state to be able to provide the assistance and the resources to these individuals who are still in these communities that are still recovering.”

Rye’s core staff is two people, she said, though the office does employ others with the help of federal grants. “So, yeah, it’s a lot,” she said.

But it’s rewarding and vital work, she said, helping people on the worst days of their lives. The office is hiring, and Rye is hoping to convince lawmakers to increase its operating budget from about $3.2 million to about $5.6 million at the upcoming 60-day session. The extra funding would help attract and retain staff, many of whom are lured away by federal disaster response agencies or elsewhere.

As it stands, the skeleton crew can’t take as much time as needed to help a community recover or prepare before another flood, snowstorm or wildfire. 

“We’re going so much that we cannot put in those mitigation efforts the way we really, truly would like to,” she said. “We’re kind of just putting Band-aids on situations to keep the state afloat.”

Patrick Lohmann has been a reporter since 2007, when he wrote stories for $15 apiece at a now-defunct tabloid in Gallup, his hometown. Since then, he’s worked at UNM’s Daily Lobo, the Albuquerque Journal and the Syracuse Post-Standard.