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Brochures for the certified community behavioral health clinic operated by Santa Fe Recovery Center in Gallup.
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Courts Reporter
Brochures for the certified community behavioral health clinic operated by Santa Fe Recovery Center in Gallup.
The former chief operating officer at the Santa Fe Recovery Center has filed a new lawsuit accusing the addiction treatment provider of firing him after he shared his findings with the board — against the CEO’s wishes — about alleged financial mismanagement.
Mike Boardman moved to Santa Fe from Maine to accept a $200,000-per-year job with the nonprofit and started work Dec. 1, according to a complaint he recently filed in state District Court.
However, Boardman alleges, he discovered within his first week on the job that the organization, which receives millions of dollars each year from the federal government and other public funding, was in serious financial distress and unable to meet payroll for over 200 employees.
“When Boardman reported this financial crisis and what he believed to be gross mismanagement of the organization’s funds” to the board chair, the center “terminated him within 48 hours,” according to his civil complaint, which accuses the organization of retaliation and seeks an unspecified amount of compensatory and punitive damages.
Information on nonprofit news organization ProPublica’s “nonprofit explorer” webpage shows the treatment center — which has provided addiction treatment services for more than 20 years and has expanded its reach in the last few years, opening a state-certified community behavioral health clinic in Gallup — has struggled with finances.
The Santa Fe Recovery Center had annual revenue of about $20 million in 2024 and expenses of about $21 million, data shows. An independent audit commissioned by the organization for the fiscal year ending in June 2025, also posted by ProPublica, identified a “material weakness” and “significant deficiency” in internal controls, which it said “could limit the organization’s ability to track and report financial data reliably.”
Several Santa Fe Recovery Center officials, including listed media contact Donna Magnuson, did not respond to multiple messages seeking comment on the lawsuit or the organization’s finances. General counsel Linden Thomas declined to comment Friday.
Founded in 2005, the Santa Fe Recovery Center, based at 2504 Camino Entrada, offers detoxification, residential treatment, outpatient treatment and medication-assisted treatment, according to its website.
It received more than $7 million in state legislative capital outlay between 2019 and 2023 to move some of its substance use disorder services to a new facility in Santa Fe where it could expand, The New Mexican reported in 2024.
Last year, the center opened a “one-stop-shop” clinic in Gallup, where patients can receive primary care and a range of mental health and behavioral health services through a four-year, federally funded “demonstration project.”
The Santa Fe site was set to slowly add the same services, a spokesperson told The New Mexican in January 2025.
The center also was on a list this year of 17 local nonprofits that received grants totaling $2.7 million over four years from the city of Santa Fe.
Boardman alleges he was fired in retaliation for disclosing to the board information about mismanagement that CEO Stacy Martin had directed him to withhold.
According to his complaint, he discovered the treatment center had spent about $1 million per year in overtime costs over the last three years, “with no management oversight”; had paid more than $350,000 to a clinical consultant “with questionable return on investment”; and had high debt, delinquent invoices, a nearly exhausted line of credit and “excessive employee turnover with staff reporting they did not know who their supervisor was for six months.”
He reported his concerns to Martin, but she “took no meaningful action,” Boardman alleges.
Immediately before a Jan. 14 board meeting, Martin instructed Boardman to remove certain financial information from a presentation he had planned to give to the board, he alleges.
“The information Martin directed Boardman to not disclose was evidence of gross mismanagement and waste of funds,” his lawsuit states.
A week later, the suit says, he sent a personal email to board Chair Jeff Pontius disclosing the information Martin had asked him to withhold “because he believed the board needed this information to address a financial crisis that threatened the organization’s ability to serve its patients and to properly account for public funds.”
About 48 hours after that, he says, he was “administratively suspended and cut off from all internal systems including his email.”
He received a letter Jan. 26 from the center’s general counsel, stating he was being terminated “as part of a reduction in force,” and denying any retaliation, the lawsuit says.
The most recent annual report on the Santa Fe Recovery Center’s website is from 2023.
But the audit report posted by ProPublica offers some insight into the organization’s finances in the recent past.
Performed by Albuquerque-based SJT Group, the audit found missing purchase orders and contracts for seven vendors paid in excess of $100,000 in fiscal year 2025, and found four vendors were paid more than $250,000 without evidence the board had approved the purchase.
For one of those four vendors, the amount paid exceeded the approved contract about by $200,000, according to the audit.
The audit also found five credit card transactions over $1,000 for which there were no approved purchase orders, and determined “credit card transactions … are not properly documented and/or approved,” and the agency “may also be incurring costs that are not for business purposes.”
Significant adjustments to journal entries were needed to correct balances after the account records were closed at the year’s end, according to the audit.
The audit also identified high turnover in the accounting department and lack of adherence to procurement policies for spending funds from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“For one vendor paid in excess of $10,000 during fiscal year 2025, no written quotes were obtained for the services. There was also no purchase order approved with this vendor and there is no evidence that the Board of Directors approved the purchase,” the audit states.
“The contract signed with this vendor exceeded $250,000, and there is also no evidence that the Board of Directors approved this contract,” the report adds.
Several of the audit findings were issues that also had been flagged in 2024, according to the report.
Brochures for the certified community behavioral health clinic operated by Santa Fe Recovery Center in Gallup.
The former chief operating officer for the Santa Fe Recover Center has filed a lawsuit against the substance use disorder and behavioral health treatment provider, alleging he was fired for revealing financial mismanagement to the board, against the CEO’s wishes.
Mike Boardman moved to Santa Fe from Maine to accept a $200,000-per-year job with the nonprofit and started work Dec. 1, according to his lawsuit. However, within his first week on the job, he discovered the organization was in serious financial distress, he alleges.
A fiscal year 2025 audit report published by ProPublica identified material weaknesses in internal financial controls at the organization, which receives millions of dollars in federal funding each year.
The Santa Fe Recovery Center aims to have a new facility for men up and running by November.
Courts Reporter
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