Stanford Assailed Over Bid to Bill U.S. for Study

Stanford University, already reeling from a congressional investigation into its spending of federal research funds, is being criticized for trying to charge taxpayers millions of dollars to study how the school bills the government, according to federal memos.

“Outlandish” and “absurd” is the way one federal official described Stanford’s desire to have taxpayers pay for the complicated accounting reports about research overhead costs at the campus, according to a recent memo. That official, Robert Lloyd, a regional manager of the Defense Contract Audit Agency, wrote that the government will not pay for the studies because such bills “are neither allowable, allocable nor reasonable.”

According to the memo, Stanford officials estimated that the first round of the cost-allocation studies will cost between $3 million and $5 million and an additional $2 million to update them annually. Those studies would look at the controversial agreements between Stanford and the government on how much the government should pay for such research-related items as maintenance, library and administrative services.

In another memo, Paul Biddle, the Office of Naval Research’s representative at Stanford, also expressed outrage. “I would not allow Stanford such bountiful plunder from the federal treasury due to its obvious unreasonableness,” wrote Biddle, who oversees all government research funds at Stanford.

Stanford spokesman Richard Kurovsky would say only that the matter was “under negotiation” and might be settled next week. However, Kurovsky said the government has always paid for such studies when any university contends that a standard reimbursement rate is insufficient.

Congressional investigators have accused Stanford of overbilling the government as much as $200 million for research overhead in the past decade and alleged that the school charged taxpayers for such items as furniture, linen and parties at the president’s campus home. Stanford has withdrawn about $690,000 in those bills but has denied any wrongdoing.