Senate to Question Corzine on UMDNJ Fraud
U.S. Senate opens probe of UMDNJ:
A U.S. Senate committee has opened an inquiry into allegations of serious fraud, corruption and mismanagement at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
In a letter to Gov. Jon Corzine yesterday, leaders of the Senate Committee on Finance -- which has jurisdiction over the federal Medicaid and Medicare programs -- said they were "alarmed and deeply troubled" by the problems at UMDNJ.
They asked the governor, along with UMDNJ officials, to brief the committee on how and when the abuses were first discovered, and "what efforts, if any, where taken to address the matter."
The committee also wants the opportunity to interview any UMDNJ whistleblowers who warned university officials of "potential criminal fraud and misconduct" at the state's medical schools and hospital.
"Federal health care programs are already stretched to their limit. Any dollar that goes to waste, fraud or abuse doesn't help a person in need," Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the Finance Committee chairman, said in a statement.
UMDNJ, the largest public health university in the country, was criminally charged in December with fraudulent Medicaid billing, the Senate finance committee officials yesterday noted that the full extent of the fraud may be "in the tens of millions of dollars."
Tomorrow, the university's board of trustees is scheduled to meet to vote on a $600,000 severance package for UMDNJ president John Petillo, who a week ago negotiated a separation agreement with the Gov. Corzine’s office and plans to resign at the end of February.
For much of the past year, UMDNJ has been shaken by continuing disclosures of widespread waste and abuse, after The Star-Ledger last year first uncovered $75,000 in payments made to Ronald White, a Philadelphia power broker with close ties to then-Gov. James E. McGreevey.
The university made at least three political donations last year: $500 to Newark Mayor Sharpe James' re-election fund, $250 to the state Democratic Committee, and $50 to the Hispanic American Political Action Committee at a dinner honoring Jon Corzine. Those donations violated state regulations that prohibit public universities from making political contributions.
School officials regularly approved donations to charitable organizations, including a $10,000 check to an unregistered breast cancer charity run by Newark Councilwoman Gayle Chaneyfield-Jenkins. Stein recommends UMDNJ limit its donations to $1,000 and develop new standards for choosing which organizations to support.
In the months that followed, the newspaper detailed millions of dollars in no-bid contracts and questionable spending -- many of those deals to politically connected individuals that were kept below a threshold level, averting review by the university's board of trustees.
Other internal memos obtained by the newspaper spelled out an illegal Medicaid billing scheme that had been allowed to go on for years, despite repeated warnings to top administrators. And last week, it reported that the university paid nearly $70,000 over the past year to shuttle the head of UMDNJ's citizen advisory board, Mary Mathis-Ford, from her home in the Poconos to the UMDNJ campus in Newark in a chauffeur-driven town car.
The U.S. Attorney's Office continues to investigate the institution, and has subpoenaed records related to jobs given to those with political connections, as well as contracts to lobbyists and consultants.
New Jersey Government; UMDNJ
A U.S. Senate committee has opened an inquiry into allegations of serious fraud, corruption and mismanagement at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
In a letter to Gov. Jon Corzine yesterday, leaders of the Senate Committee on Finance -- which has jurisdiction over the federal Medicaid and Medicare programs -- said they were "alarmed and deeply troubled" by the problems at UMDNJ.
They asked the governor, along with UMDNJ officials, to brief the committee on how and when the abuses were first discovered, and "what efforts, if any, where taken to address the matter."
The committee also wants the opportunity to interview any UMDNJ whistleblowers who warned university officials of "potential criminal fraud and misconduct" at the state's medical schools and hospital.
"Federal health care programs are already stretched to their limit. Any dollar that goes to waste, fraud or abuse doesn't help a person in need," Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the Finance Committee chairman, said in a statement.
UMDNJ, the largest public health university in the country, was criminally charged in December with fraudulent Medicaid billing, the Senate finance committee officials yesterday noted that the full extent of the fraud may be "in the tens of millions of dollars."
Tomorrow, the university's board of trustees is scheduled to meet to vote on a $600,000 severance package for UMDNJ president John Petillo, who a week ago negotiated a separation agreement with the Gov. Corzine’s office and plans to resign at the end of February.
For much of the past year, UMDNJ has been shaken by continuing disclosures of widespread waste and abuse, after The Star-Ledger last year first uncovered $75,000 in payments made to Ronald White, a Philadelphia power broker with close ties to then-Gov. James E. McGreevey.
The university made at least three political donations last year: $500 to Newark Mayor Sharpe James' re-election fund, $250 to the state Democratic Committee, and $50 to the Hispanic American Political Action Committee at a dinner honoring Jon Corzine. Those donations violated state regulations that prohibit public universities from making political contributions.
School officials regularly approved donations to charitable organizations, including a $10,000 check to an unregistered breast cancer charity run by Newark Councilwoman Gayle Chaneyfield-Jenkins. Stein recommends UMDNJ limit its donations to $1,000 and develop new standards for choosing which organizations to support.
In the months that followed, the newspaper detailed millions of dollars in no-bid contracts and questionable spending -- many of those deals to politically connected individuals that were kept below a threshold level, averting review by the university's board of trustees.
Other internal memos obtained by the newspaper spelled out an illegal Medicaid billing scheme that had been allowed to go on for years, despite repeated warnings to top administrators. And last week, it reported that the university paid nearly $70,000 over the past year to shuttle the head of UMDNJ's citizen advisory board, Mary Mathis-Ford, from her home in the Poconos to the UMDNJ campus in Newark in a chauffeur-driven town car.
The U.S. Attorney's Office continues to investigate the institution, and has subpoenaed records related to jobs given to those with political connections, as well as contracts to lobbyists and consultants.
New Jersey Government; UMDNJ
