Administrators at three University of California campuses changed their responses to a state auditor’s survey to reflect more favorably on UC President Janet Napolitano’s office after her staff directed them to make the changes, according to new documents obtained by The Chronicle that shed light on the controversy.

State Auditor Elaine Howle surveyed UC’s 10 campuses as part of her recent investigation of finances and spending at UC headquarters.

The surveys and previously unreleased emails show that administrators at UC Santa Cruz, UC San Diego and UC Irvine removed criticism of Napolitano’s office or upgraded performance ratings in key areas at the direction of Napolitano’s staff. The interference — including a systemwide conference call conducted by the president’s office to coordinate responses among all campuses — prompted Howle to discard all the results as tainted.

“The tampering is absolutely outrageous and unbelievable,” said Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, who requested the audit last year with Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, amid concerns over increased spending and rising tuition and fees. Napolitano oversees an office with a $686 million budget and nearly 1,700 employees.

Ting compared the interference to a student who is failing, “and magically the professor changes the grade and passes the student.”

Another Democratic lawmaker called for Napolitano’s resignation Tuesday, citing revelations published this week in The Chronicle that the UC president’s office spent extravagantly on parties, cell phones and iPads while other public agencies cut back.

The audit, released April 25, uncovered $175 million in secret reserves in Napolitano’s office — money that lawmakers said should have been disclosed to the public and the governing Board of Regents. Now, as lawmakers prepare to approve a new state budget, some say they will try to impose greater restrictions on the $3 billion they allot to UC each year.

Howle intended for the surveys to provide her investigators with independent, confidential reviews of UC headquarters, and to help them determine whether services were being duplicated.

In one survey, UC Santa Cruz rated the technology help it received from the president’s office as “poor.” But after Napolitano’s office intervened, UC Santa Cruz administrators changed the “poor” rating to “good.” They also changed ratings for three services previously judged “fair” to “good.” And they changed their ratings of three other services, including help in identifying top-performing high school students, from “good” to “exceptional.”

In a letter accompanying the survey, Howle told the campuses to keep the surveys confidential and not to share them “outside of your campus.”

But emails show Napolitano’s staffers learned about the surveys in October when a UCSF administrator informed them she had received one. Subsequently, Napolitano’s office contacted all the campuses and began directing administrators on how to respond to the surveys.

On Nov. 22, Napolitano’s Deputy Chief of Staff Bernie Jones wrote UC Santa Cruz:

“Our expectation is that we review an updated version of the survey responses before it is resubmitted to” the California State Auditor.

Jones’ email was among a flurry of correspondence between Napolitano’s office and UC Santa Cruz from Nov. 21 to 23 showing that the president’s office monitored the survey submissions.

On Nov. 23, an email from UC Santa Cruz Chancellor George Blumenthal to his staff revealed that Napolitano’s office had a problem with even their revised survey.

“The feedback I received from (the president’s office) is that they are happy with the entire submittal except for the long paragraph at the bottom of page 39,” Blumenthal wrote. “I suggest you remove the paragraph and submit it.”

The paragraph contained complaints about Napolitano’s office’s division of Ethics, Compliance and Audit Services.

The final version replaced that criticism with a statement that the ethics division provided “high-quality” services that UC Santa Cruz could not otherwise afford, and was “a critical partner” for the campus.

UC Santa Cruz officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Ratings were changed at two other campuses.

UC San Diego’s original survey said administrators were “dissatisfied” with explanations from the president’s office about how it spends the campus fees that keep it afloat. They changed the survey answer to “satisfied” after the president’s office reviewed it.

At UC Irvine, survey ratings on questions about the quality of collaboration with the president’s office over campus fees were changed from “OK” to “satisfied,” and others from “satisfied,” to “very satisfied.”

“I am sorry that we did it this way,” Napolitano told lawmakers at last week’s audit hearing in Sacramento.

But she also tried to calm the lawmakers’ alarm that her office manipulated the results of the audit.

“It’s important to take a step back and look at what changes were actually made. At seven of the 10 campuses, there were no changes made in the ratings,” Napolitano told them. “It clearly was not a process that was designed to make UCOP look good. It was designed to coordinate and collect the transmission of the surveys.”

Asked on Tuesday to respond to the new documents, Napolitano’s spokeswoman, Dianne Klein, said again that many answers were not changed.

And despite the emails showing that the president’s office monitored submissions at several campuses, Klein said the president’s office “did not see what the campuses ultimately submitted.”

The audit has prompted a growing backlash against UC, an autonomous public university whose president operates at the pleasure of the regents.

On Tuesday, Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva, D-Fullerton (Orange County), called for Napolitano’s resignation, saying she is no longer trustworthy.

“It’s time she resigned,” said Quirk-Silva, a member of the Assembly Higher Education Committee.

Napolitano has been UC president since mid 2013, and previously was secretary of Homeland Security in the Obama administration.

On Tuesday, regents Chair Monica Lozano expressed confidence in Napolitano, calling her a “capable and effective leader.”

At the same time, she said the regents will oversee an independent review of how Napolitano’s office handled “certain aspects” of the audit. On Thursday, the regents will livestream a meeting to appoint an outside consultant to monitor UC’s compliance with 33 recommendations from the state auditor to improve financial accountability.

Assemblywoman Catharine Baker, R-San Ramon, vice chair of the Higher Education Committee, and other Republicans want to subpoena documents from UC, and have twice asked Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount (Los Angeles County) to do so.

“We do not wish to prove malfeasance,” they wrote Rendon. “We want to ensure students, parents, and stakeholders that malfeasance has not occurred.” As a revered institution, their letter said, “UC must be beyond reproach.”

Democrats want to take a different approach with UC, looking at its purse strings.

One lawmaker, state Sen. Cathleen Galgiani, D-Stockton, has already introduced a bill to cap salaries and limit tuition increases under certain circumstances at the autonomous university. Others will consider placing restrictions on the more than $3 billion the state typically gives to UC each year.

“That has traditionally been almost completely discretionary,” Ting said. “We have to look at whether that is smart or whether we need to be more specific about where that’s going.”

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov

Online: To see all Chronicle stories on the UC audit, visit: www.sfchronicle.com/uc_audit/