| 1.1 |
Yes |
$33,575 |
$0 |
|
|
Resolve the $33,575 in questioned service and airfare expenses for which TAMU has not agreed to reimburse NSF and direct TAMU to repay or otherwise remove the sustained questioned costs from its NSF awards.
|
| 1.2 |
Yes |
$16,864 |
$0 |
|
|
Direct TAMU to provide documentation supporting that it has repaid or otherwise credited the $16,864 in questioned salary, airfare, and publication costs for which it has agreed to reimburse NSF.
|
| 1.6 |
Yes |
$0 |
$0 |
|
|
Direct TAMU to strengthen its administrative and management procedures and internal controls surrounding the purchase of airfare and the approval of travel expense reports. Updated procedures could include: a. Conducting annual training for those individuals responsible for reviewing and approving expense reports within each department. b. Establishing clear guidance regarding the allowability of no-show expenses that do not benefit the project(s) charged. c. Establishing clear guidance regarding how employees that are combining business and personal travel should document that the combined travel did not cause the total airfare expenses to exceed the expenses that TAMU would have incurred if the employee had only performed business-related travel.
|
| 1.7 |
Yes |
$0 |
$0 |
|
|
Direct TAMU to establish clear guidance regarding the allowability of publication expenses, including the need to acknowledge NSF funding sources.
|
| 2.1 |
Yes |
$49,218 |
$0 |
|
|
Resolve the $49,218 in questioned service and travel expenses for which TAMU has not agreed to reimburse NSF and direct TAMU to repay or otherwise remove the sustained questioned costs from its NSF awards.
|
| 2.2 |
Yes |
$1,191 |
$0 |
|
|
Direct TAMU to provide documentation supporting that it has repaid or otherwise credited the $1,191 in questioned additional salary costs for which it has agreed to reimburse NSF.
|
| 2.5 |
Yes |
$0 |
$0 |
|
|
Direct TAMU to strengthen its administrative and management processes and internal controls related to establishing and documenting compensation rates for individuals who perform additional work outside the scope of their regular duties. Updated processes could include performing an annual review of TAMU employees, both staff and students, to ensure that TAMU has documented an established rate of pay for each employee that charges salary expenses to sponsored projects.
|
| 3.1 |
Yes |
$15,757 |
$0 |
|
|
Resolve the $15,757 in questioned unallocable materials and software costs for which TAMU has not agreed to reimburse NSF and direct TAMU to repay or otherwise remove the sustained questioned costs from its NSF awards.
|
| 3.2 |
Yes |
$4,982 |
$0 |
|
|
Direct TAMU to provide documentation supporting that it has repaid or otherwise credited the $4,982 in questioned publication and one-time salary payments for which it has agreed to reimburse NSF.
|
| 3.3 |
Yes |
$0 |
$0 |
|
|
Direct TAMU to strengthen its administrative and management procedures and internal controls for allocating expenses to sponsored projects. Processes could include: a. Implementing additional procedures requiring the Office of Sponsored Research Services to review and approve all non-salary expenses charged to NSF awards within 90 days of the award’s expiration date. b. Requiring Principal Investigators or other designated staff to review and justify the allocation methodologies used to charge one-time salary payments, supplies for administrative personnel, and publications to sponsored projects. c. Requiring Principal Investigators or other designated staff to provide documented justifications when charging publication costs to Federal awards and requiring the Office of Sponsored Research to verify the charges were allocated in a manner consistent with the sponsors identified in the publication’s funding source(s). d. Requiring the Office of Sponsored Research to verify that personnel appropriately allocated administrative costs such as salaries and supplies based on the relative benefits received.
|
| 4.2 |
Yes |
$13,362 |
$0 |
|
|
Direct TAMU to provide documentation supporting that it has repaid or otherwise credited the $13,362 of questioned indirect costs for which it has agreed to reimburse NSF.
|
| 4.3 |
Yes |
$0 |
$0 |
|
|
Direct TAMU to strengthen its administrative and management processes and internal controls for applying indirect costs to Federal awards. Processes could include: a. Requiring that personnel manually review material and supply purchases to evaluate whether TAMU should account for the items as equipment. Specifically, TAMU should consider whether the items purchased have a useful life that exceeds one year and a value that exceeds $5,000, and/or if the items are necessary for the use of an asset that meets those criteria. b. Requiring that personnel manually review purchases from consultants and vendors whose collective billings exceed $25,000 each to ensure that the expenses should not be considered subaward costs and that TAMU does not inappropriately apply indirect costs to subaward expenses that exceed $25,000. c. Implementing an annual review process for costs charged to awards that include funding for tuition remission to ensure that TAMU is appropriately segregating tuition remission costs in accounts that it has excluded from its Modified Total Direct Cost base.
|
| 6.3 |
Yes |
$0 |
$0 |
|
|
Direct TAMU to strengthen its administrative and management procedures and internal controls related to procurement processes. Processes could include: a. Conducting annual training for individuals who are responsible for approving service expenses that require a sole-source justification and requisition before the vendor or consultant begins providing the services. b. Implementing a control to flag service expenses from vendors that have invoiced a cumulative total of more than $10,000 to ensure that TAMU has executed a service agreement with each vendor before processing the payment.
|
