Stanford Is Not Alone in Overbilling, Auditors Say : Research: A river cruise, limousine rentals and dinner dances were charged as costs at some schools.

Stanford University is not alone among major research universities in having billed federal agencies for millions of dollars in questionable research costs, government auditors said Wednesday.

Among the supposedly “necessary” expenses of doing government-sponsored research turned up by auditors at other schools were charges for a Nile River cruise, limousine rentals and dinner dances, General Accounting Office officials told a House subcommittee.

“The problems (of overbilling) are systemic,” said J. Dexter Peach, an assistant comptroller general at the GAO. He cited audits at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard Medical School and UC Berkeley, all of which turned up thousands of dollars in questionable billings.

The GAO inquiry was undertaken last year after the House Energy and Commerce oversight and investigations subcommittee, chaired by Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), revealed that Stanford had wrongly charged the government for luxuries such as a yacht and redecorating the university president’s home. The charges were claimed as “indirect costs” of doing research.

Though most news stories have focused on matters such as yachts and decorations, the auditors told the subcommittee the most significant “overcharges” came from unduly generous reimbursements for more mundane costs, such as utilities.

Defense Department auditors confirmed Wednesday that so far they have questioned $230 million in charges by Stanford dating back to 1981. “Stanford continues to hold by far the largest amount which should be refunded,” said Fred J. Newton, deputy director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency.

But financial officers at both Stanford and Berkeley criticized the rules for charging indirect costs as “inexact.” Stanford officials also complained that government auditors are questioning the negotiated agreements that had been approved by another set of government auditors during the 1980s.

“We feel we have a strong legal argument that the government can’t change its own rules 10 years afterward,” said Peter Van Etten, Stanford’s chief financial officer.

According to Dingell, wrongful billings included $44,000 at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh for a Nile River cruise, $8,855 at Syracuse University for a dinner dance and $15,000 at Pennsylvania State University for advertisements at the Hershey Amusement Park.

The Berkeley campus was said to have wrongly charged $300,000 for furniture and other decorating items that went into residence halls. But the government auditors also noted that Berkeley, unlike the other universities, also had made accounting errors in which it undercharged the government for some costs.