Editor,
The recent revelation printed in Saturday's Albuquerque Journal that UNM Vice President of Athletics Paul Krebs asked Rocky Long to resign raises serious questions that deserve answers. It is beyond comprehension how Krebs could commit the University to a new contract just three months prior to asking for Long's resignation. Long's new contract provided a generous salary increase and many additional perks.
My questions are: What did Krebs use to justify the salary increase and additional perks provided in the August 2008 contract? If Long deserved the increased compensation and a new contract in August 2008, what had materially changed by November 2008 that would justify the request for his resignation?
Obviously, Long's overall record was known in August of 2008. If Long's future with UNM was contingent upon his 2008 win-loss record, Krebs should have addressed contractual issues at the end of the 2008 season. Normally, a request for resignation is associated with either poor job performance or some form of misconduct. If, in fact, there was misconduct, then Long should not have received any unearned compensation and certainly not $677,000.
Most looking at this from the outside are left to wonder what was really going on behind the scenes. Was this Krebs' way of providing Long a generous golden parachute at the University's expense, or were there sufficient grounds to request that he resign? If this resignation request was done to provide Long a golden parachute, I believe this gift violated the anti-donation clause of the New Mexico Constitution. If UNM officials wanted to provide such a generous severance package, the money should have been paid from private donations.
Recently, the UNM faculty voted no confidence in President David Schmidly's leadership. Based on this fiasco and other decisions, I seriously question Schmidly's judgment as well. The decision to renew Long's contract only three months prior to asking for his resignation appears seriously flawed and raises fundamental questions about Krebs' judgment, too.
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In spite of this, Schmidly chose to award Krebs an extension of his contract through 2013 along with a substantial salary increase. Schmidly took this action weeks prior to implementing a hiring and salary freeze. Schmidly has shown his propensity to spend extravagantly on his top administrators' salaries. Schmidly is oblivious that this extravagance is to the detriment of the students, faculty morale and academic mission of the University.
Larry Neely
Daily Lobo reader
