Audit: UNM staffer took 19 unapproved trips
Lawyer for ex-employee denies charges; claims boss wanted retaliation
The program specialist at the LGBTQ Resource Center at the University of New Mexico has been fired after an investigation revealed the misuse of the organization’s funds, according to documents reviewed by the Journal as part of an Inspection of Public Records Act request.
Alma Rosa Silva-Bañuelos had been with the resource center since 2010. She was terminated as of June 17, after the university’s Division of Human Resources found that she violated university policy and procedures requiring prior approval for travel expenses.
The LGBTQ Resource Center provides support, advocacy and education to UNM students, faculty and staff of all gender identities and sexual orientations.
An internal audit summary, as well as documents and receipts related to an HR investigation, indicated that in 2016 Silva-Bañuelos failed to receive prior approval for 19 of 22 trips, incurring more than $50,000 in unapproved expenses.
All travel expenses were supposed to get prior approval from her supervisor, Josephine De Leon, formerly the vice president for equity and inclusion.
According to the documents, Silva-Bañuelos submitted non-allowable receipts for expenses and in some cases failed to produce receipts at all; took inappropriate cash advances; used her university-issued credit card for unapproved lunches and the purchase of groceries and gifts; allowed someone else to use it in violation of policy and then denied it; and authorized a student scholarship without following policy.
Attempts to reach Silva-Bañuelos were unsuccessful. But her attorney, Stephen Curtice, said in a written statement his client “categorically
denies all of the allegations against her,” citing wrongful termination and violations of the Whistleblower Protection Act.
Her firing, Curtice said, is retaliation for Silva-Bañuelos going to then UNM Provost Chaouki Abdallah, now president, to complain of “the gross mismanagement of her department by her supervisor” and asking that the LGBTQ Resource Center be transferred to a different unit within the university.
All the travel Silva-Bañuelos undertook to “grow and develop the center” was prior approved by De Leon, Curtice said. After SilvaBañuelos “blew the whistle on her supervisor, she was subjected to an internal audit, where the university claimed she had not obtained approval for her travel.”
He further claimed UNM denied him “access to files, documents and emails” that would show the allegations against his client were false.
According to the audit, the accusations against De Leon were “separately investigated and deemed unfounded.”
Specific improprieties cited in the documentation included:
Silva-Bañuelos authorized a student’s airfare for a study abroad trip to Cuba, knowing that students were supposed to pay their own airfare. There was no record of reimbursement from the center staff/ student, who at the time of the trip was no longer registered at UNM.
Questionable expenditures of $380 for items were categorized as “books and gifts” during a trip to Ojo Caliente, and people she identified as participating on that trip later denied they were present.
Silva-Bañuelos incurred $3,095 in non-refundable expenses for an unauthorized trip to Thailand that was subsequently canceled.
Silva-Bañuelos made two unauthorized trips to Standing Rock, N.D., site of an oil pipeline protest, costing more than $5,000 “for no approved center business purpose,” the documents said.
UNM spokeswoman Dianne Anderson said “a decision on any future action (including criminal charges) will not be made until after the audit is formally presented to the UNM Regents Audit and Compliance Committee,” which is scheduled to meet sometime in August.