The $6000 Question

1976. Harvard returns $100,000 in Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) grants to the federal government, because they were improperly charged to the account of another HEW grant.

That may sound familiar, because the auditors at HEW recently found another mistake in another grant, this time in the Radiology Department at the Medical School. This time, however, Harvard will only have to return $6000 because of accounting errors.

Embarrassed financial officials last week said the University agreed to refund the money after the release of an HEW auditor's report reviewing three grants awarded to the Medical School and Peter Bent Brigham Hospital between 1975 and 1978.

The report ripped apart the University's accounting methods, noting the records "were in fact so bad that much of our effort was devoted to reconstructing records for personnel costs."

The government's detective work uncovered the fact that about $5800 was credited to a National Institutes of Health grant, and about $600 charged twice to the same account. In addition, the auditors found evidence of some incorrect accounting procedures, such as the method of calculating salary payments to researchers.

"Needless to say, we are not happy that improprieties were found," Thomas O'Brien, financial vice president, said last week. But he added that procedures have nonetheless improved since the 1976 fiasco.

To correct the accounting problems, the Med School created a committee to revise and enforce new accounting standards and train the administrative assistants who do the bookkeeping.

"Our financial act needs cleaning up," Mitchell Adams, dean for financial affairs at the Med School, said last week. No one in the neighborhood seems to disagree with him.