Univ. Of New Mexico: $432K in sky box revenue uncollected

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — University of New Mexico officials said Monday that $432,000 in skybox suite revenue from the university's basketball arena has gone uncollected. UNM officials made the disclosure during a news conference after the university announced there were "inconsistencies" in contracts for arena suites. They said they were instituting new controls and oversight of athletics department finances. Officials said they've started to collect the money owed to the department for box usage from 2010 to 2017, but so far don't know why it was never collected. According to officials, the problem came to light through journalists' public records requests and two ongoing state inquiries into the department's overall spending and a 2015 golf trip to Scotland. Following the announcement, New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas on Tuesday sent a letter to University of New Mexico Interim President Chaouki Abdallah requesting records regarding the recent revelations of uncollected payments. "Public educational institutions such as the University of New Mexico ("UNM") must be accountable and responsible in ensuring that amounts due are collected in a timely, efficient, and complete manner," Balderas wrote. The suites in the university basketball arena known as the Pit are marketed and sold by the Lobo Club, the fundraising arm of UNM athletics. It is still unclear why fees for some suites went uncollected for so long.