“A Culture of Excellence: Building Success from Within” — a training series offered by the Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center that promises to teach companies how to create workplaces “where valued and empowered employees own the customer experience”— can be booked as an online seminar. With a couple of clicks, an employer can order a virtual, one-hour presentation, or a two-hour talk that concludes with a live Q&A. There’s also Plan B: traveling to a Ritz-Carlton resort to do the same training, complete with breakfast, lunch and a networking mixer, at a resort whose name is synonymous with opulence.
According to a report from New Mexico’s Office of the State Auditor published on Tuesday, administrators at Western New Mexico University chose to live it up. A public institution based in Silver City — a town of 9,000 people that has a poverty rate nearly double the national average — WNMU spent $25,500 in taxpayer money to send six people to the Ritz-Carlton, Rancho Mirage, a resort in the scenic desert of Palm Springs, California. The auditor’s report says that figure was part of a total of $363,525.99 misused as part of the university’s “wasteful” and “improper” spending.
After nearly a year of investigating the university’s books, the auditor shared his office’s findings with the governor’s office, the State Ethics Commission and the New Mexico Higher Education Department. Examiners focused on the last five years of spending at WNMU and found that the university spent more than $214,000 on 402 domestic and international trips that violated its own policies, along with nearly $150,000 on university credit card transactions that also broke policy. In the U.S. and abroad, WNMU President Joseph Shepard has often traveled with his wife, former CIA agent-turned-author Valerie Plame, and with members of the WNMU Board of Regents, visiting faraway places like Zambia, Greece and Spain in the name of courting international students and their out-of-state tuition dollars.
The eight-page report makes it clear that Shepard and members of the Board of Regents violated university policy many times in the last five years. What it doesn’t address are the consequences they’ll face, if any. Shepard’s contract with the university runs through mid-2027; as president, he reports directly to the Board of Regents, whose members are appointed by the governor. At a recent board meeting in July, they signed off on Shepard’s annual performance review with a grade of “Exceeds Expectations” and awarded him a bonus of $50,000.
Late last year, when members of the state legislature expressed outrage over Shepard’s spending, there was little they could do other than grill him in the Roundhouse. Only the regents have the power to amend — or terminate — his contract, and any path to alter the makeup of the board would have to run through the office of a governor who so far has not made her thoughts on the matter publicly known.
Hours after the state auditor’s findings were made public Tuesday, Shepard sent a university-wide memo with a statement on the investigation from Regent Chair Mary Hotvedt, who indicated that university leaders are eager to put the ordeal in the past.
“I appreciate the time and insights from the Office of the State Auditor,” Hotvedt wrote. “These are serious concerns which have been addressed by Western New Mexico University leadership. This includes a comprehensive review of cost disparities; updating of university policies to align with applicable state guidelines and regulations; revised travel and procurement procedures as well as staff training to ensure compliance; and initiating an independent cost-benefit analysis of international initiatives. The university has also engaged an independent auditor to conduct a special audit of the concerns raised,” which is ongoing. (Read her entire statement here.)
Shepard did not respond to requests for comment. Reached by phone, neither Plame nor Hotvedt would comment.
It remains to be seen how investigations initiated by other state agencies will proceed, and whether those will lead to any action. In late 2023, New Mexico’s Higher Education Department began an audit of the university’s finances, work that is still underway. On Wednesday, the State Ethics Commission announced that it’s launching an investigation of its own. A spokesperson for the state attorney general told Searchlight that the New Mexico Department of Justice was not officially involved in any of the ongoing probes, but was available if an investigating state agency needs its services. (Translation: So far, no investigating state agency has asked the AG to look at this as a criminal matter.)
The state auditor’s examination of WNMU’s finances followed Searchlight’s reporting on the matter. In late 2023, we published an investigation into the lavish spending of Shepard, Plame and the regents. Our reporting revealed that, among other things, Shepard had used nearly $28,000 of taxpayer money to buy luxury furniture from Seret and Sons, a Santa Fe store known for exotic pieces and high price tags. University financial records showed that Plame, who bears the title of first lady at the university but is not classified as an employee, had spent $4,073 in 2022 with Woodland Direct (a fireplace company) and $1,488.27 on Etsy for an “oriental sofa.” Searchlight also found that, in recent years, Shepard used hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Western New Mexico University Foundation — a nonprofit with the mission to raise funds “for scholarships, capital improvements, programs and other activities” in support of the university — on floral arrangements and on checks that he made out to himself.
Searchlight corroborated its findings with seven current and former employees, including one who said the university foundation had become the “presidential piggybank.”
At the time, Shepard and the Board of Regents denied any wrongdoing and maintained that their travel and expenditures abided by university policy. Shepard said that the travel, in particular, was critical in attracting foreign students, though at the time international students made up less than 2 percent of the university’s entire student body. Since then, foreign enrollment has grown by a small amount.
The state auditor’s full report details various ways that university leaders violated their own policies, including:
- Paying for travel by Shepard that appeared to be “unrelated to official university business,” including conferences and events where Plame was a guest speaker.
- Expensing travel upgrades for Shepard and members of the Board of Regents without “any documentation articulating” the need or justification.
- Issuing a university purchasing card to Plame, “who is a non-employee of the university. The University’s purchasing card holder agreement applies to university employees, requires approval of their supervisor, and any violation of the agreement references sanctions which can only be enforced on university employees.”
- Using a university purchasing card for alcohol or room service during Shepard’s travels. University policy “disallows the purchase of these items, as such purchases are paid for using public monies,” and auditors found that university officials then played a shell game by reimbursing the school with money from the university’s nonprofit foundation.
Over the last year, Silver City business owner Josh White has distributed yard signs calling for the ouster of Shepard and Plame. Courtesy of Josh White. While critics have targeted university leaders for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on “playtime for adults,” those university leaders have voiced financial concerns of their own. Last summer, decrying the compounding effects of inflation and state-mandated raises for university employees, WNMU raised tuition by 3 percent.
And in May, Shepard sent an email with more surprising news that he blamed, in part, on a lack of funding. The university’s book publishing arm, Mimbres Press, was abruptly stopping publication.
“After a number of discussions, both internally (and) externally, Western New Mexico University is going to temporarily suspend future publications of the Mimbres Press,” he wrote to the Mimbres advisory board. “This has to do with two primary reasons. First, we did not secure the necessary funding with the past legislative session to continue printing high quality publications and we wish to aggressively pursue that funding in the upcoming legislative session. Secondly, it will give us a chance to take a critical look at our successes and our challenges to determine the best methodology of maximizing quality submissions and future publications.”
In an email to the Office of the State Auditor on Wednesday, the State Ethics Commission said its investigations could “lead to the Commission authorizing its executive director and other attorney staff to file a civil lawsuit in state court” or “to refer a matter to other enforcement agencies for their review.”
New Mexico State Auditor Joseph Maestas. Courtesy of the Office of the State Auditor. The Ethics Commission also has the power to “initiate an administrative action against an involved official or employee of WNMU.” The state auditor said he is holding off on requesting such action until the commission’s investigation is complete.
“While the public, especially in Silver City, may be impatient, it’s crucial to recognize that the system is working,” Maestas said in a statement Wednesday. “This case serves as a warning to other higher education leaders about the importance of setting the right tone at the top.”
This article first appeared on Searchlight New Mexico and is republished here under a Creative Commons license. Searchlight New Mexico is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that seeks to empower New Mexicans to demand honest and effective public policy.