Orange County Register

It was a highly controversial and emotional campaign back in 2004, but California voters said yes! to Proposition 71, which allows Golden State scientists to do stem cell research with human embryos, and pumps $3 billion of public money into the effort to boot.

Since then,$700 million has been distributed for stem cell research, and another $900 million in private money has been raised. (Nearly $53 million has poured into UC Irvine, and its Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center  is building a $67 million research institute on campus.)

But The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) - created by Prop. 71 to regulate the research and dole out that $3 billion - is not adequately protecting taxpayers’ interests or serving its own ambitious goals, a state watchdog panel concluded in a report released Friday.

“Although Proposition 71 passed with almost 60 percent of the vote, skepticism continues to surfacefrom detractors, the media, members of the Legislature - even early backers - about the agency’s ability to direct funding to science that will best lead to new medical treatments and cures,” says the Little Hoover Commission report. ”Much of the criticism has been directed at (its 29-member oversight committee), which is composed of officials from top universities, research institutes and the biotechnology industry, as well as advocates from disease groups, that will benefit from the funding…..

“This structure, along with overly long terms and the inability to nominate its own leaders or hold them accountable, fuels concerns that the committee never can be entirely free of conflict of interest or self-dealing.”

A court  has said that this structure is legal,  but “legal is not necessarily optimal,” the Little Hoover Commission said. “As long as CIRM’s governance structure exists in this form, skepticism will remain, generating scrutiny that will take away from CIRM’s main focus - driving transformational scientific research and finding cures.”

Your stake? Taxpayers will shell out $6 billion to repay the $3 billion in bonds that CIRM issues to fund research. 

THE PROBLEMS

The Little Hoover Commission found that:

•  The 29-member board is too big and has had trouble assembling quorums.
• The board lacks truly independent voices to balance out those of interested board members.
• The founding board members’ terms are too long and are not conducive to adding fresh perspectives about the agency’s future given the rapid advancement of stem cell science.
•  The multiple appointing authorities for board members cloud accountability.
•  The board chair position, as structured, conflates day-to-day management with the independent oversight that the board is supposed to provide, straddling the roles of accountability and operations.
• The 50-person cap on CIRM staffing is arbitrary and has led to a potential overreliance on more expensive, outside contractors.
•  A second arbitrary cap limits to 15 the number of out-of-state scientists that CIRM can use to conduct a first-level review of grant applications. To operate within the cap, CIRM has created an internal pre-application triage process to ease the workload on the peer-review panel, but the process creates a layer of opacity when the agency should be striving for more public transparency.

THE SOLUTIONS

The state Legislature must change CIRM’s governance structure “to ensure that it can deliver on its mission of developing cures for the benefit of all, as well as provide transparency and accountability for California’s taxpayers who will be paying off the bonds,” the report says.

 Specifically, the state should: 

• Restructure the CIRM governing board around principles of efficiency and transparency.
  • The board size should be reduced to 15 from 29, maintaining the diversity of membership but adding independent voices to the board.
  • Board terms should be shortened to four years for all members and the appointment process should be streamlined.
  • To eliminate overlapping authority and enhance accountability, the roles of chair and president should be restructured and clarified.
  • To minimize disruption that can occur through turnover and changes
     from detractors, the media, members of the in the governance structure,
    new board members should be phased in as terms expire.
  • The governing committee’s name should be changed to the Board of Directors to more accurately reflect its composition.
• Improve the process for distributing grant and loan funds.
  • To enhance efficiency and transparency, the 50-employee cap on staffing should be removed, as
    should the 15-person limit on peer reviewers.
  • CIRM should modify its triage plan to review grants internally.
  • CIRM also should explore options for greater disclosure of the peer review process and amend all meeting minutes to specify individual board members’ votes and recusals, and continue the practice moving forward.
• Enhance oversight of CIRM.
  • The Citizens Financial Accountability Oversight Committee (CFAOC) and the CIRM governing board should use their authority to enhance oversight.
  • The CFAOC, chaired by the State Controller, should exercise its existing authority, or be statutorily authorized if necessary, to conduct performance audits and hold regular meetings to review CIRM’s programmatic and strategic performance, in addition to overseeing CIRM’s annual financial audits.
  • The CIRM governing board should hold its members accountable by adopting removal provisions
    in its bylaws.
• Require the CIRM governing board to begin planning for CIRM’s future.
  • To prepare for change in leadership, the CIRM governing board should create succession plans for board leadership through an open process. The agency should include in its strategic plan clear  direction for spending funds, with measurable benchmarks and a transition plan for when bond funding expires.

What, you ask, is the Little Hoover Commission? In its own words, it is “a bipartisan and independent state agency charged with recommending ways to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of state programs. The Commission’s recommendations are sent to the governor and the Legislature.”

More Watchdog:

• Showdown on statewide spay/neuter law for pets slated for Tuesday
• Airplane whisks OC water official to ceremony in, er, Riverside
• OC air marshal - fired for revealing bad plan - is denied whistleblower protection
• Some water officials use office for personal gain, report says
• Tax prep giant must stop deceptive ads and pay more than $1 million
• Fair gets slapped for promotional cartoons
• No, San Onofre is not closing down any time soon!
• County pays $250,000 in sheriff car accident
• Charitable giving down more than $6 billion as economy tanks
• Saddleback College defends senior fitness classes
• Is college cheating state for seniors’ fitness classes?
• All systems go for contentious, first-ever, recall election in Laguna Woods Village
• LWV weighs in with official statement on first-ever recall election
• Candidate OKs $10 million for execs of bankrupt bank
• Secret extremist agenda: To outlaw dogs as pets, says spay/neuter law critic
• Grand jury: Street’s big bet ‘imprudent’
• As OC Fair graduates from cattle drive to film production, some are outraged
• OC Fair executives accept gifts worth thousands
• Great Park tries to keep contamination info under wrap
• Drought-induced building freeze not necessary - yet, officials say
• Is ’severe drought’ just a chance to hike water rates? Residents wonder

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.