The last hold-over from the Northern New Mexico College administration that many believe is responsible for the institution’s problems in recent years, is set to retire at the end of the fiscal year.
Northern Vice President of Finance and Administration Domingo Sanchez decided to resign his $150,000 position after an approximately five-year stint at the school. Under his term, which began in 2012, Northern has been plagued with bad audits, mismanagement and Whistleblower Protection Act Lawsuits.
Sanchez’s decision to retire comes on the heels of allegations that one of his subordinates, former Finance director Henrietta Trujillo, embezzled at least $200,000 and the release of an audit with more than three dozen findings. The money theft occurred sometime during 2012 and 2013.
Out of the 37 findings, the accountants from Albuquerque’s Jaramillo Accounting Group attributed 34 to Sanchez’s failure to adequately carry out his duties as the school’s top financial officer.
The auditors issued a disclaimer for the audit because Northern officials failed to, or couldn’t, produce key documents required to accurately issue an opinion. Many of the findings, like the lack of timely bank reconciliations, were issues that surfaced in previous audits, dating back to 2011.
Sanchez was also named as a central figure in two Whistleblower lawsuits brought by Northern’s former Information Technologies director Angelo Jacques and former El Rito Campus director Melissa Velasquez and a minor role in a similar suit brought by former Northern Environmental Science Director James Biggs.
According to the complaint, Jacques originally filed in the state First Judicial District Court, Sanchez did nothing to stop the mismanagement of federal grant funds. Instead of preventing the waste, abuse and fraud, Sanchez allegedly turned the tables on Jacques, who became a target of the administration’s ire.
Jacques believes his activism eventually led to him getting fired.
His former colleague, Velasquez, outlined similar patterns and practices in the suit she filed against Northern, eight months later, in the same district court.
Like Jacques, instead of being applauded for her efforts to report misuse of federal and state funds, she alleges that she became a target of her superior’s anger.
For Velasquez, that anger turned into gender discrimination. Hoping to end the discrimination, Velasquez filed an internal grievance, complained to then-president Nancy Barceló and submitted a formal gender discrimination complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Velasquez took her case to court and, on May 4, a jury awarded her more than $419,000.
Several months before the theft allegation and poor audit findings surfaced, Sanchez was a finalist to replace Barceló as the school president, before the Board chose current President Richard Bailey.
Despite the trouble with the audit and theft, Bailey applauds Sanchez’s service to Northern and credits him with getting the institution’s finances in order.
“Mr. Sanchez (Domingo) has been of great service to the College,” Bailey said Monday. “He brought us, as an institution, from the red into the black. If it weren’t for his fiscal conservatism, we would have had a much harder time weathering the state budget crisis. Domingo deserves a lot of credit for that.”
Bailey said although Sanchez has accrued several hours of annual leave, which he could use to take an extended leave ahead of his June 30 retirement date, he has decided to stick around to help with the transition.
Jemez Mountains Electric Cooperative Chief Financial Officer and Assistant General Manager Ricky Bejerano will serve as the interim vice president of finance and administration starting June 1.
Bejerano has worked at the Co-op for a just under two years. Before his service to the utility, he served as the New Mexico state deputy treasurer.
Co-op General Manager Joseph Sanchez said he hates to see Bejerano leave, but he is happy for his new-found opportunity.
“I think they gained a valuable resource,” he said. “I am happy for his new opportunity. I know he will do a great job for them. He was a tremendous resource while he was here.”