POMONA - A decades-long practice by Western University of extending to employees - including top executives and officers - salary advances and zero-interest loans was a recruiting tool, a top university official said this week.

Board of Trustees Chairman Warren Lawless said in a statement that an internal university investigation has found nothing wrong with the practice by President Philip Pumerantz and other Western executives of approving for themselves loans and salary advances in excess of $400,000.

"We have reviewed the facts available pursuant to our ongoing investigation surrounding the university's former practice of providing advances to employees and related issues," Lawless said in the statement, which was released Monday. "At this time, we conclude that the practice was proper and entirely appropriate, and that it helped in retaining employees and in maintaining a positive work environment."

The Board of Trustees met Saturday to discuss the school's financial practices.

Lawless declined to elaborate beyond the written statement Tuesday.

Internal university documents show that Pumerantz and at least two other top university executives approved for themselves more than $400,000 in salary advances and zero-interest loans between 1981 and 1999.

Pumerantz approved more than $250,000 worth of salary advances to himself between 1981 and 1990, the documents show.

He received at least $74,000 in additional salary advances during the late 1990s, according to the documents.

Pumerantz and other executives agreed to pay the advances back, the documents show.

Pumerantz has repeatedly refused to comment.

The university documents were made public earlier this month as part of a court filing by Sinclair Hugh, Western's former director of human resources.

In March, Hugh filed a complaint with the state Attorney General's Office alleging decades of financial impropriety on the part of Pumerantz and others and then was fired by the university.

He is suing Western for unfair termination, alleging he was fired for blowing the whistle on illegal financial practices.

University officials have denied the allegations and are suing Hugh, who they allege engaged in an intentional campaign to defame Western's reputation.

On Tuesday, a university spokesman said Western had a policy in place through 1999 by which employees could take loans against the dollar value of accumulated vacation time.

The practice was abandoned in 1999 after a Board of Trustees review of the university's financial practices, according to Mark L. Wallace, Western's executive director of communications.

"All of this came to the Board of Trustees in 1999, and they put an end to it then," Wallace said. "They decided that there would be no more advances to employees and that everything was to be paid back. It ended and everything was paid back by 2001."

An attorney general's official has said that loans from a nonprofit corporation to any of its officers and trustees is illegal.

Sonia Berndt, a deputy attorney general in the charitable trusts section of the Attorney General's Office said she could not comment on ongoing investigations but that she is currently reviewing the complaints she has received regarding Western University.

Craig Lenz, dean of the university's College of Osteopathic Medicine, has also complained to the attorney general about allegedly improper financial practices on the part of Pumerantz and others.

Berndt said issues of financial impropriety by nonprofit corporations are often resolved without criminal charges being filed, but that officers and trustees who benefited from improper loans are encouraged to step down from their positions.

Wallace said the growing size of Western -- which began in 1978 as a small osteopathic medical school but has since expanded to include five colleges with distinct medical focuses -- demanded a change in financial practices.

"As you add more colleges, the place continues to grow," Wallace said. "It makes it hard for the place to be a family. It makes it hard for the university to be a small employer. We are a big employer now, and we needed to start behaving like that. That is what the Board of Trustees was looking at back then when they made a change in policy."