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Monday, December 21, 2009
Colleges Hit With Payback Demand
By Colleen Heild
Copyright © 2009 Albuquerque Journal
Journal Investigative Reporter
The state Department of Transportation is asking New Mexico's two biggest universities to repay a combined $1.3 million after an internal audit turned up hundreds of irregularities in how transportation research money was spent.
The DOT is asking the University of New Mexico for $314,000 in reimbursements and New Mexico State University for $1.06 million.
Both schools had contracts with the DOT's Research Bureau to perform transportation-related research on topics such as bridge and pavement design.
But an internal audit ordered by the U.S. Department of Transportation showed the DOT's Research Bureau and its university contractors spent several million dollars of federal and state money on projects that weren't authorized by the federal government or weren't considered research under federal regulations.
Some of the unauthorized work involved a DOT official who diverted money from a road design study to pay for homeland security projects.
Auditors also raised questions about whether at least one UNM report delivered as part of a Research Bureau contract had recycled old information.
DOT spokesman Mark Slimp said that as a result of the audit, the state agency reimbursed the Federal Highway Administration $2.7 million this year. Slimp said the DOT has been having a "dialogue" with the two universities about repaying their share of that amount, identified by auditors as totaling about $1.3 million. The Research Bureau did some work in-house but contracted with UNM, NMSU and Sandia National Laboratories for other research.
The audit, which covered spending for the years 2000-2005, began in August 2005. By the time DOT's Office of Inspector General finished the audit in 2008, it had involved 11 auditors, according to a report reviewed by the Journal.
Among the more than 250 audit findings: DOT employees took dozens of trips that weren't approved by the Federal Highway Administration while the universities billed the DOT for travel that wasn't allowed by the contracts issued, such as a $3,541 trip to Beijing.
The audit was launched several months after the Journal reported in 2005 about one particular NMSU contract issued by the Research Bureau. Through that contract, the bureau spent $70,000 on a private investigator, whose duties included random security monitoring and sweeps of personnel, equipment and buildings for electronic eavesdropping bugs.
That same contract was the vehicle by which thousands of dollars of bullet-resistant film was purchased for windows of several state DOT buildings, including the Research Bureau office in Albuquerque. The security measures came after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. DOT and some university officials said in 2005 they feared the Research Bureau and other state buildings could be targeted by terrorists.
A UNM spokeswoman last week said she didn't know the details of a DOT request for reimbursement. She said the university received a packet from the DOT late Friday but declined to provide a copy of any correspondence that might have been included. The Journal was referred to the university's official custodian of records, who didn't return a telephone call or respond to an e-mail on Friday afternoon.
An NMSU spokesman said he would have to research the issue before commenting.
The audit focused chiefly on the actions of David Albright, the longtime chief of the state's Research Bureau who was fired by the DOT in July 2005. He appealed his termination, but it was unclear late Friday how the case was resolved.
Albright, who now is a senior transportation planner for Bernalillo County, couldn't be reached for comment Saturday or Sunday. But he has maintained he did nothing wrong.
Since the controversy, the Research Bureau has had a major change of leadership and emphasis. But the audit uncovered numerous examples of how research funds were misspent in the past.
One finding stated: "Research Bureau Chief, David Albright, instructed his staff to manipulate their Time & Attendance records and charge work time to projects inaccurately."
When one employee inquired about research, purchases and expenditures, Albright told the employee "it was none of his business," auditors reported. Another employee, who along with Albright approved some of the questionable expenditures, said he did not question Albright. "Albright knew what he was doing," the employee told auditors.
The audit concluded there had been "possible misappropriation of federal and state funds," adding that state and federal transportation money wasn't always used to promote the Research Bureau's missions and goals.
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