Universities Say Reporting Demands Are Robbing Value From Stimulus Grants

No one who gets federal money for a specific purpose should be surprised by oversight. Whether staff from these “some universities” had an unrealistically rosy idea about how much monitoring would take place, or if the environment tightened the strings along the way, it’s still melodramatic to say compliance is significantly reducing the value of the money. If you’re that weak administratively, do everyone a favor and stop competing for grants that other groups are prepared to implement more effectively, or buckle down yourself and do the work…

Universities are the only entity receiving federal funds that has a cap on costs that the Feds will reimburse to cover administrative costs, including accounts. The rates were set 20 years ago. We are used to accountability and their are strict requirements for how, on what, and when we submit financial reports. When the rules change becoming three times as burdensome and universities can only get reimbursed for the costs of managing grants at 1990 rates the administrative support for researchers is stressed to the breaking point. A recent report out of the National Academies shows that the administrative load on researchers has doubled since 1990. They now spend 42% of their research effort on paperwork. Talk about a poor use of taxpayers’ money. Wouldn’t it make more sense to fully reimburse universities for hiring a clerical assistant (like they do for companies, not-for-profits, and even foreign entities) to do the paperwork rather than keeping a world class scientist busy with redtape instead of finding a cure for cancer or developing more efficient and cleaner energy sources? Do the math!

I also have to agree with 11211250. All too often bureaucracy makes overweening demands that in truth only serve to whet the appetite of the bureaucratic food chain. Nothing is more self-serving than wasting other people’s time, and what could be more satisfying to a petty bureaucrat than sticking it to some highfalutin researcher? Accountability typically demands duplicative and often nonsensical reporting of no real value; and, as 11211250 points out, it is now consuming increasingly ridiculous amounts of the grant recipient’s time to produce. This is an unfortunate side effect of the “information age” since the mass of truly indigestible verbiage now being demanded can be safely hidden in electronic media, whereas if committed to paper would occupy warehouse after warehouse. It’s long past time we demanded accountability for accountability, but wait … that would require even more bureaucracy.