The Johns Hopkins University agreed last week to pay $2.6-million to settle claims that scientists there had overstated the amount of time they were spending on medical-research projects financed by the federal government.
The university agreed that its researchers had promised the government they would spend a greater percentage of their time working on particular clinical-research projects than they actually did. The university also conceded that it had overcharged costs for fringe benefits. In a written statement, however, the university denied any wrongdoing and said it was settling the case only to avoid lengthy legal proceedings.
The charges were first brought by a whistle-blower, E. Faye Grau, who still works at Johns Hopkins. She had worked as an office supervisor for an addiction-treatment program run through the university’s Bayview Medical Center. She filed a complaint stating that a researcher at the center, Robert K. Brooner, had billed several federal grants for time that added up to more than 100 percent of his available work time and had promised that the grant would support work by other employees that was never performed.
That triggered an investigation by the National Institutes of Health, which had provided some of the grant money. The Justice Department then sued to recover money from the improperly handled grants. Federal law allows whistle-blowers like Ms. Grau to collect a portion of settlements arising from their complaints. The settlement gives her about $440,000.
To avoid similar lawsuits, legal experts have increasingly been urging universities to carefully perform “effort reporting” -- closely tracking whether researchers are fulfilling their time obligations on federally supported projects. Federal regulations require researchers who are supported by grants to spend the promised amount of time working on those grants, and their institutions must keep records to show that they did.
Grant-making agencies, like the National Institutes of Health, use the information when deciding how much money to award.
Last week’s settlement covers federal grants made to Johns Hopkins researchers from 1994 to 2000. Ms. Grau began the supervisor job in 1988. In her complaint, she said that she brought the overbilling to the attention of Mr. Brooner and other superiors but that no corrective action was taken. She said Mr. Brooner demoted her in 1997.
She brought a separate lawsuit for that demotion, which resulted in another settlement reached last week, said her lawyer, Robin Page West, of Baltimore. The terms were not disclosed,
The $2.6-million settlement agreed to by Johns Hopkins covers additional researchers, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Baltimore. A spokeswoman said the office would not release further details.
Mr. Brooner, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Hopkins, could not be reached for comment on Friday. His office referred questions to Bayview Medical Center’s press office.
In its statement, the university noted that during the years in question, researchers with faculty appointments were employed by a corporation, Bayview Physicians, whose financial accounts were not part of the university’s central payroll system. Universities use payroll records to help track effort reporting. Bayview Physicians has since merged with the university, and the researchers are covered by a centralized payroll accounting system.
