A number of
The meeting, which will not be open to the public, will be attended by President Michael Martin, Regents Chair Laura Conniff and Vice Chair Bob Gallagher, state Reps. Joseph Cervantes, Nate Cote, Mary Helen Garcia, Joni Gutierrez and Andy Nuñez and state Sen. Cynthia Nava.
Other lawmakers may attend, but at least some have conflicts with legislative business. The meeting was sought by Cervantes.
I recently requested that lawmakers seek an attorney general opinion on whether the NMSU Foundation can legally keep information about donors secret. That was in response to the regents’ announcement in May that they were using money from secret donors to boost the compensation of the president and former men’s basketball coach.
Garcia, Nuñez and Sen. Mary Kay Papen have said they’ll sign the letter that’s being drafted to the attorney general seeking such an opinion, and
In the meantime, the attorney general’s office has already begun consideration of the issue, and is also looking into whether the university violated government transparency laws in its handling of records requests from me and the Las Cruces Sun-News and in the holding of a recent regents meeting that wasn’t properly noticed.
The Sun-News and I have said the donor information should be public. I contend the public has a right to know who’s helping pay its public officials. Martin and university officials disagree, saying making the records public would hamper the university’s ability to raise money.
The meeting has the potential to be contentious. Martin has recently had some terse conversations with people who disagree with his assertion that the foundation records should be secret. He has made clear that he’s offended that anyone might suggest he can’t be trusted to be above the influence of secret donors.
I contend it isn’t about whether the public can trust Martin. It’s about the public’s business being public. Several local legislators have said they believe most or all of the records should be made public.
Awaiting records
In addition, I requested late last week a number of documents from the university, including information about how much the regents have reimbursed Martin for entertainment and other expenses he accrued in his duties as president, how much the foundation has reimbursed him for similar expenses, how much the foundation has reimbursed for his wife’s travel, and how much the foundation paid for the vehicle he drives and to the cost of insuring it.
The university is in the process of providing me records about the reimbursements from the university, and I will be inspecting many of them on Monday. The university forwarded the other requests on Monday to the foundation, which has not responded to my request, four days later. Under state law, it has three days to respond if it’s subject to the state Inspection of Public Records Act.
But the foundation says it’s not subject to the act, and that’s the very issue the attorney general is considering. In the meantime, I don’t know whether the foundation plans to respond at all. I asked that question this morning in an e-mail to its attorney and have not yet received a response.
If the foundation refuses to release the records, it will be asserting that the public doesn’t have a right to know not only who is helping pay Martin, but also how much he’s being compensated. If we can’t know how much his car cost to purchase and insure, how much his wife is being reimbursed for travel, and how much the foundation is reimbursing him for entertainment and other expenses from fundraising duties, we have no idea how much this public employee is really being paid.
That should concern a few people. I’ll let you know if the foundation responds to my request. I’ll also have a report late Monday about the lawmakers’ meeting with university officials.