{"id":1938,"date":"2007-07-05T16:52:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-05T22:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/07\/state-schools-help-pay-two-secretaries-and-a-deputy\/"},"modified":"2007-07-05T16:52:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-05T22:52:00","slug":"state-schools-help-pay-two-secretaries-and-a-deputy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/07\/state-schools-help-pay-two-secretaries-and-a-deputy\/","title":{"rendered":"State schools help pay two secretaries and a deputy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The state has released the details of how it plans to pay two of its new secretaries and a deputy secretary with the help of state universities. <\/p>\n

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

Higher Education Secretary Reed Dasenbrock<\/a> will be paid a total of $257,250 \u2013 the same amount he was paid as provost at the University of New Mexico<\/a>, according to the Albuquerque Journal<\/a>. The university will pay almost $100,000 of the cost for the higher education department.<\/p>\n

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

UNM will also pay $60,000 of the $175,000 annual salary for new Health Secretary Alfredo Vigil<\/a>, the tribune reported.<\/p>\n

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

\"\"<\/a>And New Mexico State University<\/a> will pay the entire $220,000 salary for Deputy Higher Education Secretary Bill Flores, who left his job as the school\u2019s provost and executive vice president earlier this year to take the state job.<\/p>\n

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

By comparison, Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> makes $110,000 annually. Dasenbrock and Flores are being paid about $100,000 more than their predecessors, and Vigil is being paid $60,000 more.<\/p>\n

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

While the other two will be considered full-time employees of the state agencies, Flores remains on staff at NMSU as a \u201cspecial assistant\u201d to the executive assistant and provost, and his duties in that capacity include dealing with the higher education department.<\/p>\n

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

Basically, Flores<\/st1:place> is working in the provost\u2019s office, which currently doesn\u2019t have a provost, and even though he\u2019s not the provost, he\u2019s being paid the salary he made when he was the provost, but, officially, he\u2019s the deputy secretary of higher education.<\/p>\n

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

NMSU is currently in an active search for a new provost.<\/p>\n

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

The situations are unusual, to say the least. In fact, Dasenbrock technically had to be fired from his job at UNM in order to qualify for a yearlong sabbatical at his current salary of $257,000 that was stipulated in his contract, the Journal reported in a second article<\/a>. Instead of the sabbatical, UNM will chip in the money to help pay him in his new job.<\/p>\n

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

UNM will actually pay Dasenbrock\u2019s entire salary, and the state will reimburse the school for its portion.<\/p>\n

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

Vigil, for UNM\u2019s part of his salary, has to become a faculty member at UNM\u2019s medical school.<\/p>\n

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

Naturally, many lawmakers are concerned about potential conflicts. Who do you represent when, say, NMSU pays your salary and you have to decide whether to recommend housing a certain program at NMSU or New Mexico Tech<\/a>? What would you do if the NMSU president, or, say, the president\u2019s assistant, who\u2019s also the niece of a powerful state senator, came to you and asked you to recommend NMSU?<\/p>\n

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

\u201cI think there\u2019s a wealth of conflicts of interest there,\u201d Sen. Tim Jennings<\/a>, D-Roswell and co-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, told the Journal. \u201cThe way the system is set up, there are systems of checks and balances. When the checks and balances go away, then what do we do?\u201d<\/p>\n

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

\u201cThere\u2019s no question that, in order to attract qualified people, you have to pony up,\u201d Sen. Kent Cravens<\/a>, R-Albuquerque, told the Journal. \u201cBut putting it in a situation where one institution might have a political advantage over another seems like a stretch. I\u2019m not sure I\u2019m comfortable with it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The state has released the details of how it plans to pay two of its new secretaries and a deputy secretary with the help of state universities. Higher Education Secretary Reed Dasenbrock will be paid a total of $257,250 \u2013 the same amount he was paid as provost at the University of New Mexico, according […]<\/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-1938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1938","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=1938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1938\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}