Today's San Francisco Chronicle reports on an investigation by Sen. Charles Grassley into the abrupt firing of David Kessler as UCSF School of Medicine Dean in December 2007. Grassley now has -- on the record -- statements from the auditing firm KPMG that are highly critical of the University and explicitly say that KPMG was never able to verify that the School's finances were as stated by the University. After Kessler's termination, University officials insisted that it had both internal and external financial reviews that "verified" that the School's financial condition was good and that Kessler's assertions of accounting irregularities were unfounded.
Kessler warned in 2006 that the UCSF School of Medicine faced a potential $200 million funding gap but was fired after University officials insisted he was wrong. Not surprisingly, his successor, Sam Hawgood, reported that the school had a $170 million funding gap earlier this year. That funding gap was a factor in the elimination of my position at UCSF.
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