Four state lawmakers have made good on their pledge to ask the attorney general for an opinion on whether the New Mexico State University Foundation can legally keep information about its donors secret.
Reps. Nate Cote, Mary Helen Garcia and Jeff Steinborn and Sen. Mary Kay Papen, all from Las Cruces, signed the letter seeking a legal opinion, which was sent to the attorney general several days ago.
You can read the entire letter by clicking here.
The lawmakers don’t take a stand in the letter on whether the records should be public, but point out that there has been some concern about the foundation’s refusal to release such records and that the question has been raised in a number of states, with some courts determining that such records are public and others determining that they are not.
“In such states as New Mexico, where neither the Legislature nor the courts have determined the applicability of open records laws to university foundations, attorneys general in at least nine states have issued opinions on the public status of their universities’ affiliated foundations,” the letter states. “… We respectfully request a full exploration of whether or not the NMSU Foundation is subject to (the Inspection of Public Records Act) or the Open Meetings Act.”
You may recall that I asked the legislators to write the letter a couple of months ago after the university began using money from secret donors to boost the compensation of its president and former men’s basketball coach. The university denied my request for information about the donors.
In anticipation of the request, and because of a separate request I made, 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 and in the holding of a regents meeting that wasn’t properly noticed.
Let me take this opportunity to thank