UA president seeks probe of health-sciences spending, documents

• UA President Ann Weaver Hart calls for an independent investigation of the university's health sciences
• The call for an investigation followed an Arizona Board of Regents official's questions about spending, public documents

University of Arizona President Ann Weaver Hart has called on the Arizona Board of Regents to hire a law firm to conduct an independent investigation of the university's health-sciences administration and examine allegations of misuse of public funds and alteration of public documents.

In a statement released late Monday, Hart said she previously had initiated administrative actions in response to disagreements among executives at UA medical schools in Phoenix and Tucson and senior leaders of the university's health-sciences department. However, following comments made by Arizona Board of Regents President Eileen Klein during a public meeting on Friday, Hart decided to take further action, her statement said.

Klein's comments went "far beyond complaints about leadership style, morale, and organizational climate or disagreements over allocation of resources," Hart said in her statement. "Ms. Klein's allegations, including misuse of public funds and alteration of public documents, were previously unknown to me."

Hart added that she has asked the Board of Regents, which oversees the state's public universities, to contract with an "independent third party law firm to complete a comprehensive and independent analysis of the allegations and submit a report directly to the board."

Neither the university nor the board would discuss the basis of Klein's allegations or provide specifics.

UA Health Sciences chief defends use of tax-paid chauffeurs, upgrades

The Regents' Health Affairs Committee held public meetings on Aug. 5 and Aug. 12 to discuss operations, missions and plans involving the UA's medical schools in Phoenix and Tucson.

Both medical schools are independently accredited with different curricula, but both are under the administrative umbrella of UA Health Sciences, which also oversees the colleges of nursing, pharmacy and public health.

Questions after resignations

Questions arose earlier this year after Dr. Stuart Flynn, the longtime dean of the UA College of Medicine-Phoenix, resigned to take a similar post at a new medical school in Fort Worth, Texas. Four other senior leaders of the Phoenix medical school followed Flynn to the Texas medical school, while the Phoenix medical school's top financial officer took a position at Case Western Reserve University.

Following those departures, the Arizona Medical Association, a physicians' group with about 4,000 members, called for an independent review of the circumstances under which Flynn and other senior leaders departed.

Medical association officials on Monday cheered Hart's call for an independent review.

Leadership exodus continues at UA's Phoenix med school with VP's departure

"I applaud the action that President Hart has taken," said Chic Older, executive vice president of the medical association. "We are totally supportive of her directive. We assume this will include exit interviews of the departed dean and his college of medicine team. We remain steadfastly supportive of both the college of medicine in Phoenix and the college of medicine in Tucson."

It's unclear whether the Regents will follow Hart's call to hire a law firm for an independent investigation. During her remarks Friday, Klein said questions had surfaced about the propriety of certain public expenditures and the accuracy of information in public documents, among other items. A Regents spokeswoman did not immediately return a message Monday seeking comment.

Hart's office said the president would not elaborate beyond her written remarks.

Garcia's efforts praised

During the Regents subcommittee meeting Friday, more than one dozen community members lauded the efforts of Dr. Joe G.N. "Skip" Garcia, UA's senior vice president of health sciences. Garcia's supporters said that he had brought prestige to the medical school, hired stars in academic medicine and research, and helped shore up the medical schools' finances through a blockbuster merger and academic affiliation with Banner Health. Several supporters echoed similar words of support during the Aug. 5 meeting in Phoenix.

Garcia's recruits helped bring in nearly $80 million in federal funding and grants over the past two months, highlighted by the university's National Institutes of Health award of $43.3 million for the Obama administration's Precision Medicine Initiative, according to the university.

However, The Arizona Republic also reported recently about Garcia's personal travel expenses, including upgraded airline seats and his repeated hiring of chauffeured trips in luxury sedans between Tucson and Phoenix. Over nearly three years ending in early 2016, Garcia's publicly paid expenses for out-of-state trips exceeded $44,000. His in-state travel during the same period exceeded $34,000, according to travel records provided by UA to The Arizona Republic under the Arizona Public Records Law.

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Regent Rick Myers at Friday's meeting described The Republic's article detailing Garcia's spending of public money as "crap" and said media outlets are not focusing on the UA's grants, key hires and other strides. Tucson's Arizona Daily Star also ran a version of The Republic's story.

"I don’t know if we’re not telling the story right. If the media is not listening right, but there’s a big problem here ... " Myers said. " ... Our two newspapers in the state in the last week run front-page articles on how much Skip pays for someone to drive him to Phoenix and back to Tucson. Again. It’s back to my frustration. No wonder people don’t understand what we’re doing because they are hearing about spending, quote, taxpayer dollars on a limo driver instead of hearing about $100 million in new money brought in and all these other things that are happening."

Regents quiz UA leaders about Phoenix med school issues