Probe clearing UC chief draws questions
SACRAMENTO — State lawmakers on Tuesday questioned retired state Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno over why an investigation he conducted last year did not find University of California President Janet Napolitano responsible for her office’s interference with a state audit.
Lawmakers told Moreno it was clear to them he had evidence that Napolitano did intentionally and improperly interfere with the state auditor’s review of her office’s spending and business practices in 2016.
But Moreno told lawmakers that as a former trial judge, he “just didn’t think there was enough there” to conclude that Napolitano should be held accountable. His probe pinned the blame on her two top staffers, who resigned.
The grilling by lawmakers at the state Capitol came during a nearly four-hour joint committee hearing on Moreno’s report, which was commissioned by the UC Board of Regents to determine whether Napolitano meddled in the state auditor’s 2016 review of her office. Lawmakers had ordered the state audit over concerns that spending had dramatically increased at the UC president’s office.
Moreno’s report found that a “furious” Napolitano phoned UC Santa Cruz’s chancellor because the campus had submitted a confidential survey to the state auditor without first allowing the president’s office to see it.
“It does appear very clear that she was involved in the surveys and involved in providing instruction as to how the surveys should turn out,” said Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco. “Why wasn’t that enough evidence?”
Moreno told lawmakers: “We reported the facts and conclusions. I submit you can probably argue differently, but this is the best that I can do.”
Lawmakers also grilled Napolitano about her honesty last year when she told lawmakers at a May Capitol hearing that her office did not interfere with the audit and merely helped campuses who had sought her office’s help.
Moreno’s report found that Napolitano’s aides actively initiated the contact with the campuses with the intent to change campus responses to the auditor’s confidential survey to make UC headquarters look better.
Napolitano apologized repeatedly during the committee hearing Tuesday, saying, “I made a mistake, and I am sorry for it.”
UC regents publicly admonished Napolitano in November after releasing Moreno’s report. That report found that Napolitano’s chief of staff, Seth Grossman, and his deputy, Bernie Jones, directed the audit interference and then tried to cover their tracks. Grossman and Jones both resigned shortly before the report was made public. They denied any wrongdoing.
As part of her punishment, the regents ordered Napolitano to apologize for approving the scheme. Napolitano said her intention was only to have her office review the answers for accuracy and ensure they were within the scope of the audit and “reflected the views of the campus leadership.”
“Had I known what they were doing, I would have intervened and stopped it,” Napolitano said Tuesday. “I didn’t know the full extent of their activities until I received the Moreno report. All I can say is it happened on my watch, it was my staff, and I accept responsibility for that.”
UC Regents Chair George Kieffer told lawmakers necessary changes were made to UC policies to ensure future audits are not obstructed and that a firm was hired to review whether there is administrative bloat in Napolitano’s office to address the original intention of the surveys.
“It’s not going to happen again,” Kieffer said.
Assemblywomen Catharine Baker, R-San Ramon, and Sharon Quirk-Silva, D-Fullerton (Orange County), called for Napolitano to resign after Moreno’s report was made public and again pressed for her to step down on Tuesday.
Baker said Napolitano was “not forthright” when she testified before the Assembly joint committee last year about whether she knew survey responses were being intercepted and ultimately sanitized.
“I flat-out asked were surveys recalled at your direction, and the answer was no,” Baker said.