Longest-serving UNM regent out
Fortner steps down after 19 years; board already has two vacancies awaiting Senate approval
Jack Fortner, the longest-serving member of The University of New Mexico Board of Regents, is stepping down, giving Gov. Susana Martinez a chance to install one of her appointees on the school’s governing body.
Martinez has been reshaping the board of New Mexico’s flagship university, which has been grappling with a recent round of budget cuts. She had tapped two appointees to serve as regents earlier this year, but neither received a confirmation hearing in the state Senate during the legislative session that ended in March.
The governor has railed against Senate Democrats for putting off the confirmation hearings and has called on lawmakers to take up the appointments during the special session scheduled to begin at noon Wednesday. That is unlikely, but Fortner’s resignation — several months after his term was set to expire at the end of 2016 — will allow her to install a successor immediately.
Fortner and board President Robert Doughty did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
But in a letter thanking Fortner for his tenure on the board, Martinez said she would appoint a new regent.
An alumnus appointed by Gov. Gary Johnson in 1998, Fortner served as president of the board in 2005, and from 2011-15. He also chaired the committee to recruit a new president for the school in 2012, which led to UNM hiring Bob Frank. And he served on the 2007 committee to recruit an athletic director, which led to the hiring of Paul Krebs.
Frank resigned last year amid controversy about his leadership style and questions about his spending practices, and accepted a faculty position that the board created for him, even as it wrangled with financial struggles. The school’s athletics program, under Krebs, also faces allegations of wasteful spending. KRQE-TV reported earlier this month, for example,
that the school paid to send Krebs on a golf trip in Scotland with major donors.
In his resignation letter, first reported by the website NMFishbowl.com, Fortner did not give a specific reason for leaving the board.
“I am grateful to have had the opportunity to serve my alma mater for nearly 20 years and to have been able to contribute in various leadership roles to work to make out state’s flagship university an even more nationally recognized center of academic, research, medicine and athletics,” Fortner, an attorney, wrote on his law firm’s letterhead.
The term of another regent, Bradley Hosmer, was was set to expire at the end of 2016. Martinez nominated former Republican state Sen. John Ryan of Albuquerque to succeed Hosmer and outgoing Republican House Speaker Don Tripp, of Socorro, to fill Fortner’s seat. But Tripp withdrew his nomination in February, citing a provision in the state constitution that prohibits legislators from being appointed to such a position during a term in office. Martinez instead nominated Alex Romero, who was retiring from his role as CEO of the Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce.
None of the nominees got a hearing in the state Senate, however, leaving Fortner and Hosmer in their seats.
The governor accused Senate Democrats, in particular the chairwoman of the committee responsible for holding nomination hearings, of failing to do their jobs by putting off a vote on her regent appointments and used the pending nominations as a reason for vetoing all funding for the state’s higher education system.
Senate President Pro Tem Mary Kay Papen, D-Las Cruces, told The New Mexican last week that she does not expect the Senate to consider nominations during the special session. She and other top Democrats say they are most concerned with fixing the budget Martinez gutted with her vetoes.