A lawsuit filed Tuesday ponders whether University of Texas System regents used a catastrophic hurricane as cover to carry out a long-desired but thorny political coup — moving the state’s oldest medical school to Austin.
An island retailer, a retired medical branch employee and an assistant professor still employed there, along with the Texas Faculty Association, filed the lawsuit in Judge Wayne Mallia’s 405th District Court.
It accuses the system’s governing board of illegally deliberating mass layoffs in closed session Nov. 12, before reconvening in public to authorize the University of Texas Medical Branch to cut up to 3,800 jobs.
The medical branch completed the firings last week, ultimately dismissing 3,000 workers, including some renowned researchers and surgeons.
The lawsuit raises questions about other closed meetings regents convened after Hurricane Ike, which struck Sept. 13, severely flooding the island campus.
Old Suspicions
The lawsuit seeks to nullify the layoff decision but also addresses long-held suspicions that regents were gunning for the Galveston institution.
Under the regents’ direction, the medical branch reduced John Sealy Hospital from 550 to 200 beds.
Whether the smaller hospital could offer students the variety and complexity of cases needed for a top-shelf medical education is questionable, leading some observers to suspect downsizing was dismantling by default.
“We hope that in the act of discovery and act of executing the lawsuit, we find the real reasons behind this move,” said Tom Johnson, faculty association executive director.
“It’s been our suspicion for a long time — more than a suspicion — that UT wants to build a teaching hospital in Austin,” he said. “They have been steadily disinvesting from UTMB.”
Financial Frustrations
In an open meeting following a closed session, regents blamed the layoffs on financial losses of about $40 million a month after Hurricane Ike.
The hurricane cost about $710 million when cleanup, repairs and loss of revenues were tallied, medical branch officials said.
There also had been frustration at the UT System about ongoing losses. Before the storm, the 117-year-old island institution already was facing a $35 million deficit.
Within The Law
UT System officials, who declined to comment about pending litigation, have said regents were within legal bounds in conducting the executive session.
State law prohibits governing boards from deliberating about classes of employees in executive session.
But the law allows closed deliberations about individual employees.
It also allows closed discussion about legal ramifications of contemplated actions.
The lawsuit asks regents to produce in a judge’s private chambers all minutes or recordings of all executive session meetings related to the layoff decision.
Move To Austin
UT officials have considered a medical school in Austin. But whether it would be at Galveston’s expense is another matter.
The 1881 law that established a University of Texas medical school specifies it couldn’t be in the university’s flagship city, which is Austin.
Some island residents have long distrusted the regents’ intentions for the medical branch, which before the layoffs employed 12,500 people, 8,000 on the island.
Distrust intensified after revelations that system officials were prepared to lay off 4,000 people just three weeks after the storm.
Other Meetings
“On information and belief, the regents and UT System leadership had instructed the president (Dr. David Callender) to announce massive firings at the Oct. 7 meeting, but in the face of political pressure from the state and local leaders, the announcement was postponed until after the Nov. 4, 2008, elections,” according to the lawsuit.
On Oct. 8, the regents convened a special telephone meeting of the board to discuss, among other matters, “legal issues related to recovery from Hurricane Ike.”
The meeting was closed to the public, according to the lawsuit.
Later in that meeting, regents discussed in closed session personnel matters involving “UT System and institutional employees,” purportedly pursuant to executive session rules, according to the lawsuit.
Regents also convened special telephone meetings, also closed to the public, on Oct. 27 and Nov. 6, to discuss “UT System and institutional employees” and “UT Medical Branch-Galveston: Legal issues related to recovery from Hurricane Ike,” according to the lawsuit.
‘Ferret Out’
Aside from the Nov. 12 session in question, the lawsuit seeks to “ferret out” whether there were violations of the Texas Open Meetings Act at those meetings.
Along with the Texas Faculty Association, downtown merchant Allen LeCornu, retired medical branch employee Dianna Puccetti and Kay Sandor, an assistant professor at the medical branch, are suing the regents.
The plaintiffs announced Monday they would file the lawsuit Wednesday.
But on the advice of island attorney Joe Jaworski, who feared the announcement would prompt legal action by the regents, the lawsuit was filed Tuesday morning.
