{"id":1712,"date":"2007-05-11T16:15:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-11T22:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/05\/nmsu-steps-into-gray-area-by-letting-secret-donors-help-pay-salaries-of-president-and-basketball-coach\/"},"modified":"2007-05-11T16:15:00","modified_gmt":"2007-05-11T22:15:00","slug":"nmsu-steps-into-gray-area-by-letting-secret-donors-help-pay-salaries-of-president-and-basketball-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/05\/nmsu-steps-into-gray-area-by-letting-secret-donors-help-pay-salaries-of-president-and-basketball-coach\/","title":{"rendered":"NMSU steps into gray area by letting secret donors help pay salaries of president and basketball coach"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By using private money to supplement the salaries of its president and men\u2019s basketball coach, New Mexico State University<\/a> is stepping into an ethical gray area, and its leaders should tread carefully. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

On Thursday, the university announced a restructuring of men\u2019s basketball coach Reggie Theus\u2019<\/a> contract that increases his annual compensation to $446,000 per year. It\u2019s a $100,000 increase that is donated entirely by the private sector. Theus or his new employer will have to pay about $1 million to buy out the contract if he doesn\u2019t stay for two more years.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Then today, the university Board of Regents approved a contract restructuring for President Michael Martin<\/a>. His was extended an additional three years, to 2012, and his annual base salary, covered by the university, was raised from $294,000 to $335,000.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>His deferred compensation \u2013 which he\u2019s only paid if he stays through 2012 \u2013 was increased from $50,000 to $100,000, and 70 percent of it will be paid by the private sector. In addition, the private sector is chipping in a $6,000-per-month housing allowance Martin and his wife can use if they decide to move out of the university president\u2019s residence.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

How does this work? The university\u2019s foundation<\/a>, a non-profit that is technically separate from NMSU, accepts the private-sector donations, which are earmarked specifically for Theus and Martin. The foundation then donates the money to the university.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Donors get to remain secret<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The sticky part is that the public doesn\u2019t get to know who\u2019s donating the money to pay for the increases in compensation.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The foundation gets to keep its donor list secret. Theus and Martin are now being paid in part by private companies and\/or individuals to do their public jobs, and the public doesn\u2019t get to know who is helping pay them.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Such educational foundations aren\u2019t unique to NMSU. Locally, the Las Cruces Public Schools<\/a> also has such a foundation.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

There are some good arguments for why foundations should be allowed to contribute large amounts of private money to educational institutions and keep their donor lists secret. Only 37 percent of NMSU\u2019s funding comes from the state. It has to seek other funding to compete with private universities. In addition, many potential donors wouldn\u2019t give if their names were going to be disclosed, and the university would lose funding.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

But there are some good arguments for requiring such foundations to disclose their donor lists, the most basic being that the public should get to know who\u2019s paying its employees. We get to know details of every funding source the university uses to meet its budget except the money that comes from the foundation. Doesn\u2019t that contradict at least the spirit of state laws that require openness in government?<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Even though private donors are now paying significant portions of the salaries of Theus and Martin, these are still public employees. Their loyalty, like that of the board of regents that employs them, must be entirely to the university and public.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Secrecy could hide impropriety<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Say a large real estate firm was providing much of the money that goes to Theus and Martin. Say that real estate firm wanted some land owned by the university, and wanted a sweetheart deal on it. Say the firm threatened to quit paying Theus and Martin if it didn\u2019t get the deal. What would the university do?<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

New Mexico Land Commissioner Pat Lyons<\/a> is in a sticky situation right now because a developer gave more than $20,000 to a political action committee last year that turned around and gave most of it to his re-election campaign. That happened while Lyons<\/st1:city> was quietly negotiating a deal with the developer for land in Las Cruces<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>. Lyons<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> bypassed his own bidding process to lease the land to the donor.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The public gets to know about Lyons<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>\u2019 ethically challenged actions because state law requires that the PAC disclose its contributors. The public can, if it chooses, hold him accountable. Because the university foundation doesn\u2019t have to do disclose its donors, the public would never know that, in my hypothetical situation, the developer seeking university land was also giving money for salaries of two important employees.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The public would have no way of knowing if the regents and president entered into a deal under such shady circumstances. We\u2019re left to simply trust that NMSU\u2019s leaders are ethical and wouldn\u2019t bow to such pressure.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

That\u2019s not good enough. I don\u2019t mean any offense to Theus, Martin or the regents, but elected officials at the local, state and national levels \u2013 Democrat, Republican and otherwise \u2013 have proven repeatedly that we need public disclosure as a check on our leaders.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Again, I recognize this is a gray area. Public universities are having an increasingly difficult time keeping up with private schools that don\u2019t have to be open with the public. But the legislature and governor this year approved a bill<\/a> that increases the scope of the University Research Park Act to allow universities to partner in a number of areas with corporations.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

As Corporate America increases its influence over our public universities, shouldn\u2019t we at least get to know who\u2019s paying our public employees?<\/p>\n

\n

\n

A prior version of this posting incorrectly stated that Martin\u2019s deferred compensation is $100,000 per year. It\u2019s $100,000 total. It also, in one place, erroneously identified the private donor or donors as \u201cprivate companies\u201d when the public doesn\u2019t know whether the donor or donors are corporate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By using private money to supplement the salaries of its president and men\u2019s basketball coach, New Mexico State University is stepping into an ethical gray area, and its leaders should tread carefully. On Thursday, the university announced a restructuring of men\u2019s basketball coach Reggie Theus\u2019 contract that increases his annual compensation to $446,000 per year. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}