response to Phil Spina:

At UMASS Medical Center, very little attention is paid to the "under" recovery
of indirect costs.  I, personally, am surprised by the apparent indifference
of many academic institutions regarding this issue.  I once brought this
subject up at a faculty meeting wherein I suggested departments be responsible
for under recovery.  In other words, department chairs could sign off on
proposals that paid less than full overhead and it would be monitorred and
netted from university funds that were paid to the department.  Needless to
say, I was tarred and feathered and expelled from the meeting and labeled a
heretic.  I suspect that more attention is paid to this issue at private as
opposed to public universities who often have public financing mechanisms
available to pay for bricks and mortar.