Miller: UMMS resignations expected as soon as Tuesday

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There is likely to be more fallout from reports that members of the University of Maryland Medical System Board benefited financially from their positions on the state panel.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., in comments to reporters late Monday afternoon, said he expects additional resignations in advance of a meeting between board members and Gov. Larry Hogan and legislative leaders.

“There are going to be a number of resignations that are going to be announced (Tuesday),” Miller told reporters. “Also, probably an audit. We’re going to see. The speaker (Michael Busch) and I are going to meet with the governor on Wednesday, including the leadership of the board, and we’re going to have a joint announcement with the speaker, the governor and myself with regard to the board and how they should proceed.”

Miller’s comments follow reports that members of the board profited from business deals with the system they are charged with overseeing.

Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh, a former state senator, announced Monday that she had resigned her position on the board following the revelation that she failed to publicly disclosed as legally required a $500,000 deal with the hospital system. The deal, which began in 2011, involved the purchase of 100,000 copies of the “Healthy Holly” children’s  book series written by Pugh.

“I read the book,” said Miller. “I enjoyed the book. I thought it was a good book for students.”

But Pugh failed to properly disclose the deal.

“This was obviously a decision everyone regrets, and Mayor Pugh does as well,” Miller said. “Hopefully she can work out any issues in terms of disclosures that need to be taken care of. ”

As many as eight more of the more than two dozen board members also benefited from other deals, according to reports published by The Baltimore Sun.

“It’s a very unfortunate chapter in all of our lives and we need to learn from it,” said Miller. “This is a great board, but decisions were made with regards to other members of that board that were very unfortunate.”

In some cases, Miller said, members including House Speaker Michael Busch and Chairman Stephen Burch were unaware of the self-dealing. Miller said one possible fix would be for the Senate to be required to confirm appointments to the panel.

“Obviously, the decision to reward certain members of the board that the other members of the board don’t know about is a tragic mistake that we need to make sure does not get repeated,” said Miller.

But Miller said there should be times when business arrangements can move forward if the board member doesn’t directly benefit and noted one member of the board who works for a bank who has the medical system as a client.

“He doesn’t benefit personally,” said Miller. There needs to be exceptions in terms of common-sense exceptions. In terms of members who are actually getting paid, jobs — I don’t know if they’re make-work jobs or they’re actual jobs, but before people are hired the entire board should know about it. The speaker is a member of the board, he didn’t know about it. My designee, the chairman, didn’t know about it.

Miller met with Burch on Monday but didn’t provide specifics on the discussion.

“I have great confidence in his decision-making,” said Miller. “He wants to meet with the entire board before he announces his decision, the board’s decision, on what needs to happen. At a minimum there’s going to be an audit of the entire board, and based on the audit there’s going to be decisions made in terms of how the board goes forward.”

Miller said he’d like to appoint another member to the panel and said his top choices would likely be former Maryland Attorney General Steve Sachs or former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, “someone who would add stature to the board and at the same time would make sure something like this doesn’t happen again,” said Miller.