UCF director reprimanded for ethics violations

University won’t renew contract, reassesses discipline for employees

The University of Central Florida is reviewing how it handles employee discipline in the wake of a medical school technology director who was reprimanded for breaking state ethics laws and school policies by funneling nearly $350,000 in university work to his private company.

As punishment, Andrew Holloway, who makes $138,500 annually at his job, was required to take ethics classes, and a written reprimand was placed into his personnel file for two years.

“The College of Medicine Dean and I both believe this has occurred unintentionally on your part,” said the Nov. 14 reprimand written by David Noel, a medical school associate vice president. “I am confident this will not happen in the future.”

After being contacted by the Orlando Sentinel, the

university decided this week not to renew Holloway’s contract, so he will no longer be employed at the school in July, UCF spokesman Chad Binette said.

“We are also examining our policies and procedures for evaluating appropriate disciplinary actions following investigations,” Binette said in a statement.

Holloway did not return messages for comment.

Holloway, a 39-year-old UCF alumnus, worked his way up at the university for more than 15 years, getting promoted to director of the health IT operations Jan. 29, 2016.

In 2012, Holloway and his wife, Jeanette, started a business called ITProtechs that customized information technology, database and web applications, documents show.

The conflict-of-interest concerns were brought to the school’s attention when an unidentified person complained on the UCF ethics hotline in May 2016, sparking a school investigation.

The university recently released the Oct. 11 investigative report in response to a Sentinel public-information request.

Under certain circumstances, UCF employees — often faculty picking up extra classes — get paid for additional work above their usual assignments in what is called dual compensation. The school rule is that their payment can’t exceed $10,000 or 25 percent of their salaries, whichever is greater.

Holloway was among the small number of employees in this category, getting paid for additional duties since 2001, according to the UCF Compliance, Ethics and Risk’s investigative report.

But starting in 2012, Holloway circumvented the usual procedures and began getting paid through his company as a vendor instead of with dual compensation.

That meant Holloway’s company was paid more because Holloway avoided the salary cap set by dual compensation, the report said.

Holloway charged $125 per hour for his company when otherwise he would get paid $46 per hour through dual compensation for one project, the report said.

The report added ITProtechs also had an unfair advantage bidding for contracts over other companies seeking university work.

From 2012 to 2016, ITProtechs was paid $297,875 for creating an online application system for the College of Graduate Studies and $48,925 for a project with the College of Education, the report said.

Binette said the school has not determined whether Holloway must pay the money back.

During the investigation, unidentified school representatives said they did not realize there was a problem paying his company directly, the report said.

“Mr. Holloway claims that no one, not even his bosses, ever told him that his company was prohibited from doing business with the university,” the report also said.

To do some of the work for ITProtechs, Holloway recruited two UCF employees, the investigation found.

“Not only did this create a conflict of interest and violate university regulations, but it also put these employees in violation of state statutes,” the school investigation said. “After paying these employees at a much lower rate for the work they performed on this project, Mr. Holloway, through his company ITProtechs, personally earned $106,663.”

Holloway’s wife signed bid and contract documents so that he could conceal his ownership, the investigation found.

In 2016 when Holloway was promoted to the director job, the school asked him to fill out a disclosure form. Holloway did not disclose his ownership or all the work his company did. It took him four attempts to accurately fill out the form, and Holloway only acknowledged he owned ITProtechs after the school confronted him about it, the report said.

Holloway violated three state statutes governing the code of ethics for public employees dealing with business relationships among family members and proper procedures for competitive-contract bids.

Binette said he did not know whether UCF would file an ethics complaint with the state.

The report recommended that the school “evaluate appropriate disciplinary actions” but stopped short of saying what the punishment should be.

Holloway isn’t the first technology official to face an ethics investigation at the College of Medicine.

In August, the school fired Gerard Aubert, an associate vice president accused of belittling female employees, for accepting free gifts and using his influence to help his wife and a friend get university jobs.