Corrupted UC System May Lose Important Government Contract

Posted by Tina

In April of this year it was reported” that an audit of the University of California System was sabotaged by it’s President, Janet Napolitano. The American Thinker quotes the LA Times:

The administration of the University of California system pays top workers salaries and benefits significantly higher than that of similar state employees, and failed to disclose to the Board of Regents and the public that it had $175 million in budget reserve funds while it was seeking to raise tuition, a state audit found Tuesday.

The audit triggered a dispute with UC President Janet Napolitano, who said charges of hidden funds were false…. (snip)

The audit of the Office of the President also found that it failed to satisfactorily justify its spending on system-wide initiatives and “inappropriately” screened surveys submitted by auditors to campus officials. …

… when we sought independent perspective from campuses about the quality and cost of the services and programs the Office of the President provides to them, the Office of the President intentionally interfered with our audit process,” Howle wrote.

Jack reported on this at the time, noting the amount of money UC had squirreled away while tuition was being raised for students. Napolitano threw two of her staff members under the bus to cover her own corruption and save her own butt. As Thomas Lifson of American Thinker noted:

…the well compensated chief executive of a $30-billion-a-year tax-exempt enterprise owned by the citizens of California, Janet Napolitano had a lot riding on the outcome of a state audit she was about to face. So she rigged it and got caught.

So once again a public official is caught in criminal behavior that would send a private sector corporate head to prison. But that’s not the end of the story for the UC system. Thomas Lifson has followed the trajectory of this story and reports that two California papers, the Sacramento Bee and the San Jose Mercury News, are now calling for Napolitano to be fired. It seems that the corrupted UC system is now threatening a major, historically significant contract:

Now that the Regents have failed in their duty to protect the university, I fear that it will suffer the inevitable consequences, harming the institution gravely. How can the federal government live up to its responsibilities to protect Americans if it continues to entrust our most important nuclear weapons management functions to an institution that tolerates corruption in its leader? Ever since its inception, the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has been managed by the University of California. Now that this multi-billion dollar contract is up for renewal, two Texas University systems – perhaps sensing the opportunity the California corruption has created — are moving toward offering competing bids.

Loss of this contract would be a huge blow to UC, and almost certainly would see the university’s global prestige suffer. Such a rebuke, however, is justified.

Hmmm….draining the swamp is not just about DC; it’s a coast to coast operation.

Since the citizens of California don’t seem to be bright enough to look out for their own best interests maybe denting it’s elitist, corrupt, money grubbing UC system is part of the answer. I think there’s a good chance that a Texas university will takeover management of the laboratory at Los Alamos in the near future.

ADDITION TO POST: Wikipedia:

The Regents of the University of California is the governing board of the University of California system.[3] The board has 26 voting members.

The California Constitution grants broad institutional autonomy, with limited exceptions, to the Regents.[4] According to article IX, section 9, “The University shall be entirely independent of all political or sectarian influence and kept free therefrom in the appointment of its regents and in the administration of its affairs.”

As with almost all other public university systems nationwide, the board of regents is treated as the real party in interest for all purposes under California law.[5][6] Legally speaking, the Regents are a California corporation,[7] administering the university as a public trust under the California Constitution. All actions of the university are done in their name, all degrees are conferred in their name, all UC property is held in their name (and is marked by signs indicating “Property of the Regents of the University of California”), all bank accounts are held in their name (and all checks must be written as payable to “UC Regents”), and all lawsuits involving the University always refer specifically to the regents. This is notable because most corporations (especially private ones) are treated by the law as a legal entity separate from their boards and employees, and lawsuits against them are addressed to the corporation or university itself, not its board of directors or trustees.

Terrific!