UCI Demotes Chief Auditor in Plan to Strengthen Office

The chief auditor at UC Irvine has been demoted after an internal investigation of his office’s operations, prompted by the university’s fertility clinic scandal.

UCI will move Audit Director Andrew Yeilding, 49, out of the top job as part of an effort to “strengthen” the office’s functions, said Patrick Reed, who oversees audits throughout the UC system. Yeilding’s successor, who has not been selected, should be a certified public accountant with “a fresh perspective and a broad-based background,” Reed said.

Reed said it should not be read as a swipe at Yeilding nor an indictment of his office’s performance during the fertility scandal. The only link to the fiasco is the fact that it caused Chancellor Laurel L. Wilkening last summer to ask for a review of all of the functions within the UCI auditor’s office, Reed said.

Wilkening called Reed in after a nurse testified before a state Senate committee that he had told a UCI auditor as early as 1992 about possible misappropriation of eggs and embryos at UCI’s former Center for Reproductive Health. The information was not passed on to top officials until two years later, Wilkening said.

Since then, records have surfaced suggesting more than 60 couples may have been the victims of unauthorized egg and embryo transfers at clinics run by three UCI doctors, resulting in at least seven births. The doctors deny any wrongdoing.

Reed, based at UC headquarters in Oakland, is now drafting his final report. He declined to discuss his findings other than to say that he believes the office needs new leadership and perhaps additional staff.

Yeilding, who has worked 19 years at UCI and has been audit chief since 1985, will retain his current salary of $89,000 and will continue to work in the six-member audit department as a manager, Reed said. He will remain acting director of the department until his replacement is hired.

Yeilding declined to comment on the job reassignment, according to a university spokeswoman.

Yeilding is not a certified public accountant but is an able employee, Reed said.

“I hope [Yeilding] is around for another 10 to 15 years and is able to retire from the university,” Reed said. “The decision to strengthen the program is related to our future and is not performance-based.”