NASA OIG Slaps JSC and NSBRI Over Improper Use of Funds
NASA OIG: Audit of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute
“We found that NSBRI delivered research products that helped NASA make progress toward the goal of mitigating human health and performance risks associated with space travel. However, while most NSBRI charges complied with applicable laws and the award’s terms, NASA improperly permitted NSBRI to use $7.8 million of research funds to renovate and pay rent for laboratory space in a private building during the final 7 years of its agreement. … In our judgment, NASA improperly approved NSBRI’s request to use cooperative agreement funds to renovate the NSBRI work space. Lacking specific legislative authority, Federal appropriations may not be used for such capital improvements unless the expenditures meet specific Government Accountability Office (GAO) criteria. Moreover, the improvements to the facility primarily benefitted Rice University rather than NASA or the Federal Government. Indeed, at the conclusion of NSBRI’s cooperative agreement with NASA in September 2017 possession of the facility renovated at NASA’s expense reverted to Rice.”
And so they get their hand slapped. Accountability, honor, justice and ethics are all dead.
Well, if they ever shut down JSC, it reverts to Rice.
So who is going to be brought to trial, found guilty, lose their job, and locked up for theft from the US taxpayer? Its interesting that NASA IG found there were criminal ‘mistakes’. Hold someone accountable!
I think the odds of a conviction are extremely low. NSMRI requested NASA approval and got it. So they have a pretty solid defense. Someone at NASA “improperly approved NSBRI’s request.” If you put the people who approved on trial, and they said, “we misunderstood the Federal Acquisition Regulations.” could you imagine the jury convicting them?
I don’t know what the IG is getting worked up over. If a research organization doesn’t know how to manage its resources it will not get much done, and government funding structures invariably micromanage to the point where the only way to accomplish anything useful is to either get free of them (e.g. COTS) or figure out a way to evade the system without getting noticed. In this case the IG should be investigating whether the NSBRI really needed the remodeling, and if so, why NASA didn’t want to finance it.
While that might make sense, it isn’t the Office of the Inspector General’s job to decide whether or not the work was needed. Someone else makes the rules. OIG says whether or not the rules are being followed, not if the rules make sense.
In this case, the rule is: “Lacking specific legislative authority, Federal appropriations may not be used for such capital improvements unless the expenditures meet specific Government Accountability Office (GAO) criteria.”
In any case, part of the complaint is that NASA “improperly approved” the work. So it looks like NASA did want to finance it.