State Auditor Hector Balderas was on campus Thursday to speak to faculty, staff and administrators, taking the first step toward re-auditing the University.
Balderas came in response to a motion passed at the Feb. 25 faculty meeting that requested an "immediate, independent, external audit to be conducted by a firm chosen by the State Auditor" to investigate how educational funds have been handled. He will meet with students, department heads and community members this week.
Balderas said his interviews have shown that the administration feels more money is going to academics but that the faculty feels its funds have been drained over the last four years.
"It seems that at this point that the center of controversy is more about decisions and policy decisions and where the money is going," Balderas said. "There is a dispute to where it's really gone between faculty and administration."
After Balderas finishes the interviews, he will ask administrators and faculty to submit questions, and he will then draft a recommendation about the scope of the audit project.
"We want to make sure that the scope is independent of either side as much as possible," he said.
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The faculty and administration must agree on Balderas' recommendation before the audit can occur.
If the parties agree, Balderas will get bids on the project from accounting firms.
Balderas said he can't estimate what the audit would cost.
Professor Douglas Fields, Faculty Senate president-elect, said UNM needs to be audited again because the annual University audit report of 2008 does not provide answers to the faculty's questions.
Balderas said two main financial issues keep coming up: the use of Instructional and General Funds, and the harvesting of funds from departments.
Balderas said the faculty is not accusing the University of using funds in an illegal manner. The re-audit would be a programmatic review that would find where the funds in question have gone, he said.
Lissa Knudsen, GPSA council chairwoman, met with Balderas last week.
She said graduate students support the faculty request for a re-audit but that the subject needs to be approached in a cautious manner.
Knudsen said it is important to increase transparency, unearth the truth and clean up mistakes that have been made without jeopardizing the integrity of the institution.
"Graduate students want to come to a University where their degree is going to mean something, (and) faculty want to be able to receive grants and have other places believe that this is an institution that does excellent research and produces quality results," she said. "The administration wants to be able to have a University that makes money and produces knowledgeable students and does all the things that it needs to do in order to make the University look good."
Balderas said he hopes to see a positive outcome from the audit request process.
"They all seemed very informed and they all seemed very passionate about the University community, so we are just going to try to facilitate solutions for the University community as a whole, so they can hopefully move on and become a united community once again," he said.
