Wilkening Approved 3 Settlements : Administration: But UCI chancellor says she left it to others to decide the amounts to be paid whistle-blowers whose allegations sparked the fertility center scandal.

UC Irvine Chancellor Laurel L. Wilkening said Monday that she approved confidential settlements to the three whistle-blowers in the university’s fertility clinic scandal but left it to campus lawyers and UC risk managers to decide the final tab of more than $919,000.

Wilkening, in her first explanation of her role in the settlements, said she endorsed the payments to the three former medical center employees who had been retaliated against “to make them whole.”

But the chancellor conceded that the process by which the settlements were decided is flawed and that her university’s controversial payouts will likely lead to major reforms of the UC method of handling cases involving whistle-blowers.

“Probably after this case, the regents will review how this all will be done,” Wilkening said.

Indeed, Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, a UC Board of Regents member, said last week that he has demanded a review by next month of all whistle-blower cases settled by the UC system during the past decade.

Several of the 25 regents complained last week that they were never consulted or informed about the UCI settlements or what seemed to them to be punitive conditions that prevented the whistle-blowers for talking publicly about their complaints. The settlements also ban the whistle-blowers from working for the University of California in the future.

In a letter to fellow Regent Stephen Nakashima, chairman of the regents’ audit committee, Davis said: “I must ask myself whether this type of settlement and treatment of whistle-blowers is standard operating procedure. If so, how many settlements of this type have occurred over the years, and at what cost to the University system and its employees?”

Wilkening said she did not decide the amount the three whistle-blowers would be paid because she did not feel “competent” to analyze the factors necessary to consider such compensation.

“I’m saying the whistle-blowers had legitimate employment claims, and I felt we had to do something about that,” Wilkening said.

“Settlements are the last way we have to make whole someone, an employee who has suffered some problems,” she said.

Attorney Paul Najar, one of two in the office of counsel to the chancellor, said a group of people on campus--including representatives of the human resources department, risk management and business administrative services--analyzed the settlement demands. Wilkening, he added, was “involved throughout the negotiations and kept informed” about what the dollar amount would be.

Two of the whistle-blowers, Marilyn Killane and Carol Chatham, were paid from the university self-insurance fund, Najar said. A third whistle-blower, Debra Krahel, was paid approximately $400,000 from the self-insurance fund. The remaining part of her settlement, about $50,000, was paid by a UCI Medical Center fund that Najar could not immediately identify.

Krahel also received the remainder of the salary due on her contract--$33,000 plus vacation pay, Najar said. UC’s risk management unit, which is part of the office of the president, ultimately approved the final figure, he said.

Najar said all three whistle-blowers--who reported to supervisors alleged misconduct at UCI’s renowned Center for Reproductive Health--requested that their settlements remain confidential. None of the women, he said, wished to remain employed at UCI. That was the reason for the settlements, he said.