[Nan3cy]

From what I gather it seems these indirect cost rates have been set by Congress, so it would seem the administration unilaterally withholding this money is an illegal impoundment and schools should have a strong legal case. What that means going forward is unclear at this time.

I believe the indirect cost rate LIMIT is set by Congress. The exact rates are negotiated/audited between the NIH and the University. That is one reason why overhead rates differ among Universities. I do think you have very good point about the administration unilaterally changing the negotiated overhead rates on existing grants. Independent of the Congress, that is a breach of a contractual obligation.

However, if the administration wants to set the overhead rate differently for any future grants, they can. Congress could then (in theory) pass resolutions condemning that action. If that doesn't work they could (in theory) take "stronger action". What will actually happen going forward is IMO pretty much unknown. I don't think an indirect cost limit of 15% will be viable if the goals of these research and training grants are to be met going forward.
 
However, consider the fact that in 1991 Stanford's overhead rate was over 70%. Also, in 1991 Stanford and the Navy got into a spat where Stanford ended up paying back 1.2 million (of over 800 million allegedly "improperly charged") to the government. https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Profession...ch_Scandal. This was military research, which follows different rules than NIH funding. The takeaways from that process probably still apply. IMO the government needs to monitor its expenses without creating an excessive bureaucracy. Auditing every university every 5 minutes won't "solve the problem". Having competent oversight might, but fat chance of that.

The indirect cost controversy at Stanford went on from 1990 to 1994. The Defense Contract Audit Agency alleged that Stanford had overcharged the government by $240 during the 1980s. Most of the research related to those costs was not military, it was medical. When the initial assignments were made, DCAA audit or NIH audit, the mojority of Stanford’s research was not in the medical school, it was in engineering and the sciences, but that had changed by 1990. In theory, audit oversight should have been changed by then to NIH, but due to interagency competition, the change had not been made (and presumably still hasn’t since I retired in 2008). Up to that time, Stanford had definitely had one of the highest IDC rates. But not the highest — I think that honor belonged to the Harvard Medical School.

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From what I gather it seems these indirect cost rates have been set by Congress, so it would seem the administration unilaterally withholding this money is an illegal impoundment and schools should have a strong legal case. What that means going forward is unclear at this time.

I believe the indirect cost rate LIMIT is set by Congress. The exact rates are negotiated/audited between the NIH and the University. That is one reason why overhead rates differ among Universities. I do think you have very good point about the administration unilaterally changing the negotiated overhead rates on existing grants. Independent of the Congress, that is a breach of a contractual obligation.

However, if the administration wants to set the overhead rate differently for any future grants, they can. Congress could then (in theory) pass resolutions condemning that action. If that doesn't work they could (in theory) take "stronger action". What will actually happen going forward is IMO pretty much unknown. I don't think an indirect cost limit of 15% will be viable if the goals of these research and training grants are to be met going forward.
 
However, consider the fact that in 1991 Stanford's overhead rate was over 70%. Also, in 1991 Stanford and the Navy got into a spat where Stanford ended up paying back 1.2 million (of over 800 million allegedly "improperly charged") to the government. https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Profession...ch_Scandal. This was military research, which follows different rules than NIH funding. The takeaways from that process probably still apply. IMO the government needs to monitor its expenses without creating an excessive bureaucracy. Auditing every university every 5 minutes won't "solve the problem". Having competent oversight might, but fat chance of that.

The indirect cost controversy at Stanford went on from 1990 to 1994. The Defense Contract Audit Agency alleged that Stanford had overcharged the government by $240 during the 1980s. Most of the research related to those costs was not military, it was medical. When the initial assignments were made, DCAA audit or NIH audit, the mojority of Stanford’s research was not in the medical school, it was in engineering and the sciences, but that had changed by 1990. In theory, audit oversight should have been changed by then to NIH, but due to interagency competition, the change had not been made (and presumably still hasn’t since I retired in 2008). Up to that time, Stanford had definitely had one of the highest IDC rates. But not the highest — I think that honor belonged to the Harvard Medical School.

[Nan3cy]

From what I gather it seems these indirect cost rates have been set by Congress, so it would seem the administration unilaterally withholding this money is an illegal impoundment and schools should have a strong legal case. What that means going forward is unclear at this time.

I believe the indirect cost rate LIMIT is set by Congress. The exact rates are negotiated/audited between the NIH and the University. That is one reason why overhead rates differ among Universities. I do think you have very good point about the administration unilaterally changing the negotiated overhead rates on existing grants. Independent of the Congress, that is a breach of a contractual obligation.

However, if the administration wants to set the overhead rate differently for any future grants, they can. Congress could then (in theory) pass resolutions condemning that action. If that doesn't work they could (in theory) take "stronger action". What will actually happen going forward is IMO pretty much unknown. I don't think an indirect cost limit of 15% will be viable if the goals of these research and training grants are to be met going forward.
 
However, consider the fact that in 1991 Stanford's overhead rate was over 70%. Also, in 1991 Stanford and the Navy got into a spat where Stanford ended up paying back 1.2 million (of over 800 million allegedly "improperly charged") to the government. https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Profession...ch_Scandal. This was military research, which follows different rules than NIH funding. The takeaways from that process probably still apply. IMO the government needs to monitor its expenses without creating an excessive bureaucracy. Auditing every university every 5 minutes won't "solve the problem". Having competent oversight might, but fat chance of that.

The indirect cost controversy at Stanford went on from 1990 to 1994. The Defense Contract Audit Agency alleged that Stanford had overcharged the government by $240 during the 1980s. Most of the research related to those costs was not military, it was medical. When the initial assignments were made, DCAA audit or NIH audit, the mojority of Stanford’s research was not in the medical school, it was in engineering and the sciences, but that had changed by 1990. In theory, audit oversight should have been changed by then to NIH, but due to interagency competition, the change had not been made (and presumably still hasn’t since I retired in 2008). Up to that time, Stanford had definitely had one of the highest IDC rates. But not the highest — I think that honor belonged to the Harvard Medical School.

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From what I gather it seems these indirect cost rates have been set by Congress, so it would seem the administration unilaterally withholding this money is an illegal impoundment and schools should have a strong legal case. What that means going forward is unclear at this time.

I believe the indirect cost rate LIMIT is set by Congress. The exact rates are negotiated/audited between the NIH and the University. That is one reason why overhead rates differ among Universities. I do think you have very good point about the administration unilaterally changing the negotiated overhead rates on existing grants. Independent of the Congress, that is a breach of a contractual obligation.

However, if the administration wants to set the overhead rate differently for any future grants, they can. Congress could then (in theory) pass resolutions condemning that action. If that doesn't work they could (in theory) take "stronger action". What will actually happen going forward is IMO pretty much unknown. I don't think an indirect cost limit of 15% will be viable if the goals of these research and training grants are to be met going forward.
 
However, consider the fact that in 1991 Stanford's overhead rate was over 70%. Also, in 1991 Stanford and the Navy got into a spat where Stanford ended up paying back 1.2 million (of over 800 million allegedly "improperly charged") to the government. https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Profession...ch_Scandal. This was military research, which follows different rules than NIH funding. The takeaways from that process probably still apply. IMO the government needs to monitor its expenses without creating an excessive bureaucracy. Auditing every university every 5 minutes won't "solve the problem". Having competent oversight might, but fat chance of that.

The indirect cost controversy at Stanford went on from 1990 to 1994. The Defense Contract Audit Agency alleged that Stanford had overcharged the government by $240 during the 1980s. Most of the research related to those costs was not military, it was medical. When the initial assignments were made, DCAA audit or NIH audit, the mojority of Stanford’s research was not in the medical school, it was in engineering and the sciences, but that had changed by 1990. In theory, audit oversight should have been changed by then to NIH, but due to interagency competition, the change had not been made (and presumably still hasn’t since I retired in 2008). Up to that time, Stanford had definitely had one of the highest IDC rates. But not the highest — I think that honor belonged to the Harvard Medical School.