Michael Ludwick <xxxxxx@GRANTS.WM.EDU> writes:
>
>Otherwise you are double dipping, getting money for a cost directly
>and indirectly.  I understand the desire to play both sides of the
>street when indirect costs are restricted or not provided in order to
>recoup as much as possible for the institution, but it sounds
>downright deceitful as well as illegal.

 If a grantee is doing this on federal awards, I agree that
 it is improper (I'm not as ready to use the term "illegal")
 to charge directly for a cost which is included in the IDC
 base.  Grantees rarely, if ever, recover their full IDCs
 anyway since the rates are now arbitrarily restricted (cap
 on admin. pool, etc.), and in IDC negotiations the game is
 for the fed to chip away at what is proposed by grantees.
 Therefore, grantees have accepted the premise that on fed
 awards they're eating some of the IDC, and thus shouldn't
 include such costs in the DC base of grant budgets.

>Moreover, I can understand wanting to charge an administrative fee
>to foundations that don't allow indirect, but don't you think they
>will catch on that the administrative fee is really the indirect in
>disguise, and a thin one at that?

 Many (some?) private agencies prefer that grantees ask for
 for admin. costs (rent, secretarial support, local telephone,
 etc.), when those costs can be readily attributed to a project,
 rather than deal with the ambiguity and controversiality of
 IDCs; and will agree to pay a reduced IDC rate (sometimes letting
 the grantee accrue interest on the award as another type of
 "hidden" IDC).  It's not so much a thin disguise, as a rather
 accepted way of doing business with the private funding world.

Len

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Leonard P. Paplauskas    Assistant Vice President for Research     |
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