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| Jan Goodwin |
KOAT - TV - The ERB ended a contract early that cost it hundreds of thousands of dollars more than the board had assumed. This miscalculation comes after Target 7 exposed that the ERB overpaid some of its members by millions. The ERB is entrusted to manage the money of nearly 100,000 current and former public school employees. It’s a lesson you learn in business 101, if you sign a contract, you better know what’s in it. But a state agency made up of people with lifetimes worth of business experience did not. “Well, I’m thinking someone did not project the cost correctly,” ERB Executive Director Jan Goodwin said.
Target 7 has uncovered that the ERB terminated a contract last July with Rothschild, a New York-based asset management company, 19 days into the quarter and nine weeks before the contract would expire. The ERB said Rothschild wasn’t making enough money compared to other asset managers. The agency estimated the termination would cost $88,000, but it actually cost $724,000. If the ERB let the contract run out, it would have cost hundreds of thousands less. In an email obtained by Target 7, the ERB’s chief financial officer said, “We got an invoice for over $700,000 when we estimated 88” and we “should have known,”… “had we read our own contract.” Later in message he asked what the board is doing to “ensure we do not make errors of this magnitude in the future.” Goodwin was one of four people who made the recommendation to cut the contract early. “We thought it was a greater risk to keep them on rather than lose more money,” Goodwin said. Goodwin said she believes the fund would have lost $7 million over the remaining nine weeks if the ERB stayed with Rothschild. Up until the point when the ERB severed ties, Rothschild had made the fund millions in profit. Read full story here:
News New Mexico
ERB Continues to Shoot Itself in Proverbial "Foot"
From KRQE-TV.com - (AP) - The arrest of Albuquerque's chief criminal judge on charges he raped a prostitute is just the latest example of a seemingly Wild West-no-rules-attitude permeating numerous levels of authority in New Mexico. Just this year, the mayor, police chief and a trustee of the small border town of Columbus were accused of helping smuggle hundreds of guns into the Mexico. A judge in Las Cruces was charged in a bribery scandal with alleged ties to former Gov. Bill Richardson. The Albuquerque police department has been under increased scrutiny for an escalation in questionable police shootings of unarmed civilians. One of its officers is facing charges that he killed his wife to hide his involvement in a car theft ring. And the city's public safety director just quit amidst a probe of his handling of a car accident involving his wife. Additionally, one of the state's most distinguished professors was recently accused of helping run a sophisticated online prostitution ring. The former Santa Fe sheriff last week pleaded guilty to embezzlement. And several pay-to-play investigations continue into dealings of former Richardson administration officials and others close to the Democrat who ran the state for eight years. This just to cite several recent, prominent examples. Read more
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