Earlier last month, KRQE in Albuquerque, NM, reported that the New Mexico athletic department footed the bill for a 2015 golf vacation for a couple of members of the Lobos administration — totaling just over $39,000.
New Mexico AD to retire after using $64k of public money for a golf trip
News of the trip was made public last month.
In late May, the story went a little deeper, as athletic director Paul Krebs said it was more than just UNM officials who got a free trip on the school’s dime:
Paul Krebs told President Abdallah it wasn’t just Athletic Department bigwigs who got a free vacation to Scotland. Krebs now admits, UNM quietly picked up the tab for a select group of local businessmen to go on the trip. He admits using $24,000 in university funds to give private individuals a free golfing holiday. The Athletic Director says UNM paid for their trip because they were potential donors to the athletic program.
Add it all up, and the public ended up shelling out $64,949 for a golfing holiday in Scotland.
Then on Friday, the school announced that Krebs is retiring after 11 years, which will go into effect at the end of this month.
“I thank Paul Krebs for his outstanding leadership of UNM athletics,” Interim University of New Mexico President Dr. Chaouki Abdallah said in the official release. “His tenure will go down as the most productive and successful in school history. Paul has tried to retire several times over the last year, and now I finally have reluctantly agreed to accept his retirement.
Krebs justified his trip as a business expense used to drum up donor contributions from some of the people on the trip. Reportedly, an anonymous donor paid the money back.
It’s particularly gutting for a program that needs to save every single penny it can. Just last month, the school announced it would cut the men’s and women’s ski teams to save $600,000. The Lobos are not unlike many programs outside the Power 5 that claim to be facing budget issues, and reportedly the program is over $1.5 million in debt. A survey the school posted on its website about budgetary feedback in January had only received 15 responses in its first three months live.
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