Between updates of the N&R situation, I took the time to read N.C. A&T’s internal audit. There’s so much there, I don’t know where to start.
The Office of Naval Research grant is as good a place as any. Based on what’s repoted in the audit, the grant was basically program manager Anna Anita Huff’s personal bank account for nice trips, nice hotel rooms and nice trips. Huff’s husband, an ONR fellow, did pretty well himself, pulling in a $66,733 stipend for the 2005-2006 academic year.
It’s pretty obvius there was a lack oversight, considering the fact that the grant’s prinicpal investigator “admitted that he had given almost complete administrative control over the grant and the contract to the “Program Manager.”
But complete administrative control wasn’t quite enough:
The Program Manager at ONR pressured the University to make the Program Director the Principal Investigator for the contract and grant for the 2006-2007 fiscal year. The communication were insistent that this change be made and included threats to withhold funding. These demands are authored by the individual at ONR who reportedly gave verbal authorization for the tremendous expansion of payments.
OK, I’m not sure if “the program manager at ONR” is Huff is herself or a third party in the federal office. But the way I read it, someone thought Huff should supervise herself. Based on what went down when there was suppsosedly was oversight, one can only imagine the malfeasance that would occur when there was no oversight.
It’s also interesting that Huff had “permission from the Principal Investigator to work from home” without approval from the Office of State Personnel. Living that nice and she couldn’t even troubled to at least show up at the office.
