UC opens probe into interference with state audit

By Nanette Asimov

The University of California regents have hired a former state Supreme Court justice and an Orange County law firm to look into revelations that the UC president’s office interfered with a state auditor’s survey of campuses, rendering the results useless, regents Chairwoman Monica Lozano said Monday.

The regents hired former Justice Carlos Moreno, who works for a dispute-resolution company called Jams, and the law firm Hueston Hennigan to evaluate inappropriate screening of campuses’ confidential survey responses by staff at UC’s Oakland headquarters. The announcement came four days after state lawmakers introduced a bill to make it a misdemeanor to interfere with a state audit “with intent to deceive or defraud” — a reaction to state Auditor Elaine Howle’s revelation that UC President Janet Napolitano’s office had insisted on seeing the campuses’ responses before they were sent to the state.

The surveys were part of an investigation into the finances and spending at UC headquarters, the results of which Howle released April 25. The audit’s primary finding was that under Napolitano, the office had amassed $175 million in reserve funds it failed to disclose before asking the regents to raise tuition for next fall.

As part of the audit, Howle sent out confidential surveys to the 10 UC campuses to learn whether services they received from Napolitano’s office were necessary or duplicative. A letter from Howle that accompanied the surveys cautioned that officials should not share the answers “outside of your campus.”

But Howle learned that Napolitano’s staff had required campus officials to share their survey responses with headquarters — a level of tampering that the auditor said made it impossible to rely on the results.

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[Source]: SF Gate