Put UNM probes, Krebs’ departure in ‘win’ column

Lobos — and all New Mexicans — deserve to have confidence in how the athletic department of the state’s largest university covers its bills, even when some of the money comes from wining and dining boosters in the Land of Enchantment or on golf trips in the land of Loch Ness.

Dual investigations announced this week by the state auditor and attorney general into University of New Mexico fundraising and spending are a step in that direction.

Also in the “win” column is the announcement by Athletic Director Paul Krebs he has decided to retire after an 11-year tenure that has seen both highs and lows. Krebs saw the Lobos win 64 league championships and was instrumental in raising the grade-point averages and graduation rate of UNM athletes. But he has been under siege in recent weeks after word got out of a 2015 golf junket to Scotland he set up for boosters that cost UNM roughly $65,000.

In a retirement statement Friday, he said he did not want to become a distraction.

The announcements of the auditor and AG’s investigations come on the heels of news reports about the junket, especially after Krebs revealed late last month that about $25,000 of UNM’s money was spent on private boosters — an apparent violation of the state’s anti-donation clause. That revelation came two weeks after Krebs had said the only money UNM spent on the trip was $39,000 on himself and two other UNM-affiliated employees.

UNM interim president Chaouki Abdallah was unaware of the junket and criticized the fact UNM paid for any part of the trip, contending the school’s fundraising arms, the UNM Foundation or Lobo Club, should have footed the bill.

It is especially important that State Auditor Tim Keller is expanding his office’s “special audit” of the athletics department to those “component units” — the Lobo Club raises funds for athletics, the UNM Foundation for the university as a whole.

UNM has said the Lobo Club paid for some expenses of the junket but has declined to say for whom or what purposes because it is a nonprofit and technically a separate entity from UNM. In reality, the Athletics Department and Lobo Club are so intertwined it is difficult to get a true accounting of who pays for what. Ditto for UNM and its foundation. The fact the nonprofits will have to open their books — even if it’s just to the auditor — will reveal whether there was anything else untoward about this trip and others.

Meanwhile, state Attorney General Hector Balderas has already said it’s clear “by his public admission that actions taken by Vice President Krebs are contrary to the high ethical standards he and all university officials must uphold, and implicate violations of the GCA (Governmental Conduct Act).”

Balderas says his office will also look into UNM’s failure to fulfill local journalists’ Inspection of Public Records Act requests, which would have revealed sooner that UNM paid for boosters.

At issue is not whether such trips are valid. Clearly spending time and travel together strengthens loyalties in feeling and giving — just ask Lobos supporter and Dreamstyle Remodeling founder Larry Chavez, who is forking over $10 million for naming rights on the football stadium and basketball arena. The problem is the junket expenditures appear to violate the state’s anti-donation clause. It is also of serious concern that the head of UNM was only brought into the loop as an afterthought.

It is to Abdallah’s credit he has said UNM will open its books and assist in the investigation. It is to be assumed that means the foundation will do the same since its president reports primarily to Abdallah.

That’s crucial because UNM has lost not only an athletics director but a huge amount of public trust.