UNC will pay $4.5M after years of accounting errors led to extra federal grant money
UNC-Chapel Hill will pay the federal government $4.5 million after the university admitted it made accounting errors for its grant funding for six years.
UNC was overpaid in grant money as a result of the errors, which UNC self-reported and attempted to fix.
The university “inadvertently retained excess funds, charged salary costs to awards after the award term had ended, and retained excess cash,” the U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday.
UNC’s two problems stemmed from grant closeout procedures from 2007 to 2011 and its new financial software system from 2014 to 2017.
“Our office is committed to ensuring that federal grant dollars are properly applied and accounted for,” said Matthew G.T. Martin, United States Attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina. “We appreciate UNC’s disclosure of these issues and hope this matter serves as a reminder to other institutions that receive tax dollars that they must have controls in place to ensure federal tax dollars are used as intended.”
UNC initially disclosed the errors to the National Institutes of Health of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and then to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The university fully cooperated with the investigation and has implemented changes to its Office of Sponsored Research to ensure future compliance, according to the Justice Department.
“We take our responsibility as a recipient of federal research funds very seriously and have forthrightly acknowledged and reported the past accounting challenges we faced in properly closing out completed grant-funded projects and transitioning to a new financial system,” university spokesperson Jeni Cook said. “Since the university initially reported this issue to the federal government, we have put extensive corrective actions in place and have provided regular updates to our research sponsors and the state auditor’s office.”
Award recipients are encouraged to report proactive, timely and voluntary self-disclosures of potential violations related to those awards. The Department of Justice said its policy ensures they will receive credit during the resolution of those matters.
UNC is a top-ranked public R1 research university that conducts more than $1 billion dollars of sponsored research each year.
The university receives nearly 70% of its research funding from federal sponsors, the majority of which is from the National Institutes of Health. UNC is ranked 5th in the country for federal research with $676 million annually.
This story was originally published January 7, 2020 at 1:26 PM with the headline "UNC will pay $4.5M after years of accounting errors led to extra federal grant money."
