In May 2008, University of Florida president
J. Bernard Machen abruptly "relieved" Kone of his duties as Dean of the
University of Florida College of Medicine amid two controversies, one hour after Robert and Debbie Forbis stood with the Dean and President Machen, as well as Lt. Governor Jeff Kottkamp, while the Forbis’s presented Dean Kone a check for $1,000,000 to be used to fund stem cell research to find a cure for blindness in children born with Optic Nerve Hypoplasia, the leading cause of blindness in newborn’s. President Machen waited until the Forbis’s had given their donation before he fired the Dean. The first controversy was Kone's decision --- publicly supported by Machen --- to override the medical selection committee and admit the son of a politically active physician who was personally recommended by Governor Charlie Crist and State Senate President Ken Pruitt, which was disclosed when medical selection committee members breached the accepted student's confidentiality to the press, (the student subsequently graduated from the UF College of Medicine and is a practicing physician in Florida). Kone, a life-long Democrat, defended his decision to override the medical selection committee in public statements and in a letter to the editor of
Academic Medicine., noting that the student was transferring from an elite BS/MD program at Northwestern University Medical School that guaranteed admission to medical school without the MCAT requirement, which was identical to the program Junior Honors Program at UF College of Medicine that accounted for 10-15% of the medical school class. He also noted that the applicant had very favorable interviews with two UF College of Medicine Admissions Committee faculty members. The second controversy involved Kone's objections regarding "deals" that had been struck by his predecessor C. Craig Tisher, M.D. and senior administrative officials to rehire senior administrators who had completed the Deferred Retirement Option Program (DROP), which allowed public employees who had worked 30 years or are older than 62 to retire, but kept working five years while their benefits earn 6.5 percent interest in a special account. Under program rules, retiring employees could return to their previous jobs provided recruiting and the University's affirmative action search processes were followed. Still, they were required to cease working for at least a month and could not receive a monthly retirement benefit for the next 11 months if they also received a university salary. Kone discovered that senior officials who had retired under DROP were rehired without the required recruiting and affirmative action search processes. Moreover, they were often provided the 11 months of no retirement benefits proscribed in DROP. In two cases, senior administrators were rehired or planned to be rehired using agreements with the UF medical campus in Jacksonville to skirt the ban on immediate rehiring set out in DROP. Kone discovered this scheme when presented with a pre-retirement agreement Tisher made with senior associate dean Robert W. Watson, M.D. to continue employment in a lucrative endowed position and to provide a six-month paid sabbatical after his return. When Kone advised Machen of this pre-retirement arrangement, Machen wrote in a Nov. 25, 2007, e-mail, that it represented "a prostitution of the University" and "one of the worst abuses of non-profit status I have ever seen. Shame on everyone involved." The University of Florida investigated the DROP matter and concluded that senior UF officials violated the spirit of a University policy by receiving DROP payouts to retire and then be rehired without searches for other candidates, in some cases also receiving perks such as bonuses and raises. The report also concluded that Kone's refusal to honor the Watson agreement prevented a violation of the law. The University's General Counsel at the time, Jamie Lewis Keith, later resigned after a lawsuit and an internal audit that reported she may have altered and withheld requested public records unlawfully used university funds to pay for outside legal counsel, and deleted an email exchange with then President Machen about a quid pro quo for renogiating their administrative contracts. On June 18, 2009, Florida Governor Crist signed into law the "Double-dipping Reform Bill" to prevent state employees from simultaneously collecting retirement benefits and a salary. On June 30, 2009, Kone resigned from the University of Florida to return to the University of Texas Medical School at Houston and received a settlement award of $517,000 from the University of Florida Board of Trustees. == Honors ==