A University President Accused of Squandering Public Money Resigns in Exchange for a $2 Million Payout
It will be a happy new year for Joseph Shepard, the outgoing president of Western New Mexico University (WNMU), who is scheduled to receive a $1.9 million lump-sum payment on January 15 as part of a severance package after resigning amid allegations of “wasteful” and “improper” spending. Under the agreement, which the public university’s five-member Board of Regents unanimously approved on December 20, Shepard, who had been receiving about $415,000 annually in salary and bonuses as WNMU’s president, will step down into a tenured position paying him $200,000 a year to teach a couple of business classes each semester. The salary is guaranteed for at least five years, adding another $1 million to the cost for taxpayers.
That sweetheart deal for Shepard came a month after a scathing report from New Mexico State Auditor Joseph M. Maestas highlighted $214,000 in travel spending that violated WNMU’s own policies, along with another $150,000 or so in improper charges on university credit cards. One example of the former: The university spent $25,500 in taxpayer money for six staff members to undergo training at a Ritz-Carlton resort in Palm Springs, California. Searchlight New Mexico, which has been digging into WNMU’s spending practices for more than a year, notes that the same course was available online.
The state auditor’s report, which covers July 1, 2018, through June 30, 2023, describes “$214,261.91 worth of spending covering 402 instances of domestic and international travel and lodging for university staff and leadership” that were “found to be noncompliant with university policies and rules.” It also cites “$149,264.08 worth of spending” on university credit cards by Shepard “covering 91 instances of procurement,” including noncompliant purchases of “high-end custom furnishings” for Shepard’s house on the WNMU campus in Silver City.
Maestas notes trips by Shepard that were covered by the university even though they “appear[ed] to be unrelated to official university business.” They included “trips related to other noneducational organizations [with] which the President is affiliated, such as the Finca Vigia Foundation, dedicated to saving author Ernest Hemingway’s Cuban legacy, and for conferences and events where his spouse [former CIA officer Valerie Plame] was a guest speaker.”
The investigation “found that the travel requests and travel reimbursements provided by WNMU for the University President and members of the Board of Regents during the period” were “consistently noncompliant with university policies.” The report cites many cost-control deficiencies, including international travel “lacking any documentation articulating the business need, purpose, justification, or authority for the travel.” The audit also found meal expenditures and upgrades in seating, amenities, and lodging that likewise were “lacking any documentation articulating the business need or purpose.”
While traveling, Maestas notes, Shepard improperly used his university credit card to buy “alcohol, food or room service.” Although the university “was subsequently reimbursed for the disallowed purchases with private funds by the university’s Foundation,” the report says, WNMU “appears to have affirmatively disregarded its policy and allowed the initial use of public university funds rather than private foundation funds” for those purchases.
The report notes Shepard’s “use of a university credit card to
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