URI committee briefed on expanding federal research compliance rules and audit outcomes; NSF sustained $149,000 in federal costs

University of Rhode Island staff and auditors told the Institutional Risk and Compliance Committee on Feb. 4 that federal research-compliance rules have expanded sharply in recent years and that the university resolved portions of a prior National Science Foundation audit while receiving essentially clean results on its federal single audit.

"The False Claims Act ... imposes liability for knowingly making false claims for payment to the federal government with knowingly defined to include not only actual knowledge but also deliberate ignorance and reckless disregard," said Elizabeth Buchanan, who briefed the committee on the research-compliance landscape.

Buchanan and external auditors described several regulatory developments that require institutional attention: the Office of Management and Budget's Uniform Guidance (cost and administrative principles for federal awards, with changes effective October 2024); research-security requirements in the CHIPS and Science Act that require institutions receiving federal funds to establish research-security training and programs; recent Office of Research Integrity (ORI) updates on definitions and procedures for scientific-misconduct investigations; and efforts by the Food and Drug Administration to harmonize its human-subjects rules with the Common Rule (45 C.F.R. 46), which could affect FDA-regulated research.

Buchanan told the committee the university has a research-security director and other staff in place to monitor evolving requirements and emphasized workload pressures created by public-records (APRA) requests for research records: since July 2023 the research office had received 16 research-related APRA requests, she said, and processing those requests can divert limited staff resources.

On audit results, Buchanan reported the final National Science Foundation audit resolution reduced the initial questioned costs: "we had $149,000 in federal costs and $268,000 in cost shares that were sustained," she said. The university has engaged with Brown University about $115,000 in disputed indirect-cost payments that URI maintains were inappropriately applied; Buchanan said URI has asked Brown to repay that amount.

External auditors from CliftonLarsonAllen (CLA) reported they would issue an unmodified opinion on compliance for the federal single audit over the research and development cluster, with no significant compliance findings, and that the federal single audit reporting package will be submitted through the State of Rhode Island by March 31 as required. Mike Johns of CLA summarized the NCAA agreed-upon-procedures review of athletic-program revenues and expenditures and said the review produced one minor comment: the university does not prepare a budget at the detailed level the NCAA procedures call for, so one prescribed comparison could not be performed.

Buchanan also flagged the False Claims Act as an institutional risk when institutions certify compliance in proposals and award documents. She cited recent cases involving large research universities where enforcement arose from alleged failures to disclose foreign influence or cybersecurity issues; the committee's general counsel was asked to review the university's certification practices in light of that risk, Buchanan said.

Ending: Committee members had no significant questions beyond clarification requests; the meeting moved to an executive session to discuss the university risk register and bond-related items and later reconvened in open session and sealed the executive-session minutes.