Wide review of UNM athletics: CFO a must
Post has been unfilled since May 2016, allowing things to ‘ fall through the cracks’
The main campus clean-up effort inside the University of New Mexico Athletic Department is just a few days old, but the man in charge said one thing is already clear: athletics needs a financial officer.
The department has gone without a chief financial officer for more than a year, a stretch that has seen spending and accounting questions prompt both the New Mexico attorney general and state auditor to launch investigations.
UNM interim President Chaouki Abdallah this week directed main campus administrator Chris Vallejos to perform a complete system review of internal controls within athletics. There is no timetable for the assignment; Vallejos said it could take three months to generate a full slate of recommendations, but he has already described filling the CFO position as an obvious step for a department with a $33 million annual budget. The officer maintains transparent records of revenue and expenses, and generates regular reports that keep the department accountable, he said.
“When you lose that discipline and focus, then things can fall through the cracks,” Vallejos said.
He said he did not know why athletics has left the CFO position empty but posited that budget constraints and difficulty recruiting candidates have contributed. Former Athletic Director Paul Krebs, who formally retired June 30, declined to speak to the Journal when reached by phone Tuesday.
Athletics has not budgeted for that position in the current fiscal year, but Vallejos indicated cutting costs elsewhere could fund it.
Almost all of UNM’s auxiliary units — those like athletics that generate most of their own revenue — have a financial officer, Vallejos said. That includes the bookstore, food services, student housing and the golf courses.
Athletics, however, only recently created such a position.
Michael Marcelli in August 2015 became the department’s first associate athletic director of finance/chief financial officer. He left in May 2016. UNM never replaced him, despite former President Bob Frank telling the Journal last August, after athletics reported a $1.54 million deficit in 2016, that the school intended to fill the job.
Marcelli’s salary was $92,000 per year, he told the Journal in 2015.