UNM won’t name all AD applicants
NM Foundation for Open Government says state law requires disclosure, even if private search firm used
He presented Terance Mathis into the Ring of Honor at last Saturday’s Lobos football game.
That was a day after he donned the cherry blazer at a press conference formally introducing him as the University of New Mexico’s new athletic director.
But Eddie Nuñez won’t actually start his job in an official capacity until sometime next week — a job he says is a huge opportunity despite a summer of media reports uncovering questionable financial management and transparency concerns in the department.
“Financial responsibility, integrity, transparency at every level of the department are not going to be (optional),” Nuñez said at his press conference.
But UNM has decided not to make the search that ultimately ended with Nuñez landing the gig as open and transparent as some say state law requires them to do.
Despite written and verbal requests from the Journal before and since Nuñez’s hire for names of all the applicants and people interviewed for the AD position,
UNM is maintaining it only has to release the names of the three finalists who interviewed in Albuquerque for the job Aug. 30-31: Nuñez, Eastern Illinois University athletic director Tom Michael and Kentucky deputy AD DeWayne Peevy.
In addition to the three finalists, about a dozen applicants were also interviewed in Atlanta the week prior by four members of UNM’s search committee, which included two Board of Regents members and two UNM employees.
UNM paid Atlanta-based search firm Parker Executive Search $50,000 plus yetto-be-determined expenses to assist in the search, including accepting all candidate applications instead of the standard UNM policy of applicants going through the human resources department. Because of that, UNM says it doesn’t have to provide the applicant names, and the search firm maintains it owns the documents New Mexico’s Inspection of Public Records Act makes clear belong to the public.
“UNM can’t contract away its IPRA obligations,” said FOG Executive Director Peter St. Cyr. “This is one of the highest-paying public jobs in the state, and certainly a high-profile position at UNM and it’s important to all New Mexicans. It should be done as transparently as possible.”
Such transparency, he notes, would allow the public to know how diverse the candidate pool was, how much interest there was in the job and just better monitor whether those who made the highdollar hire did so appropriately.
On the other hand, “if we cannot assure potential candidates that their interest in the position will not be shared, we risk narrowing the pool considerably,” UNM spokesperson Cinnamon Blair wrote in an email to the Journal. “We recognize the public’s interest in who may be considered for such a critical position, but are not acting outside of common university practices.”
While FOG says the law is clear, UNM’s contract language with Parker — and, more specifically an amendment to the original contract — muddies the water.
The deal signed June 23 states: “All documents which are prepared by the Consultant or any member of the consulting team that form a part of its services under this agreement shall be the property of UNM and shall be delivered to UNM upon the termination of this Agreement if UNM so requests.”
But UNM and Parker on July 7 signed an amendment to the contract covering the “Ownership of Documents” portion of the original contract. It states: “The database of the consultant is proprietary in nature and all information contained in the database is private and confidential and property of the consultant.”
UNM did not provide that amendment to the contract earlier this week when it fulfilled an IPRA request for the Journal, but did so Friday afternoon when asked about the story.
Despite knowing it had agreed to the new clause, UNM emailed Parker on Sept. 1 informing the firm of the Journal’s request seeking names of all applicants and those who interviewed. Eleven minutes later, a Parker associate emailed back: “The items requested are proprietary information of Parker Executive Search. As such, we will not be able to provide you with this information.”
FOG says the amendment in the contract about ownership of the documents doesn’t override state law and funneling public work through third-party entities doesn’t change UNM’s obligations.