The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey may have illegally paid cardiologists to send patients to its struggling cardiac-surgery program, in the latest — and one of the most serious — in a series of allegations of corruption and mismanagement against the embattled public-health institution, which has already been accused of waste, fraud, and abuse totaling at least $243-million.

The Star-Ledger, a newspaper in Newark, reported on the fresh allegations on Sunday, and today it said that the State Senate had opened an investigation into allegations that the university had offered high-paying faculty jobs to nearly 20 cardiologists in private practice, including two who had failed their cardiology boards, in order to raise the number of cases in the surgery program, which state officials had threatened to shut down for poor performance. The federal monitor appointed to oversee the troubled medical university also is looking into the allegations.

According to the accusations, which came to light during a whistle-blower lawsuit filed by the former chief of the university’s Division of Cardiology, the doctors did not give lectures and would rarely attend rounds. Their only real responsibility, the article said, was to refer patients to the institution’s University Hospital.

State Sen. Joseph F. Vitale, chairman of the Health, Human Services, and Senior Citizens Committee, told The Star-Ledger that the university may have put patients’ lives at risk during a time that its teaching hospital’s mortality rate was dangerously high.

“We believe any problems occurred in the past, and we continue to work with the monitor,” said Anna Farneski, a spokeswoman for the university. “We will gladly share our information with the Legislature, but until then, it’s important that our patients know they’re receiving state-of-the-art care.”