Audit reveals UW made questionable purchases with taxpayer dollars

SEATTLE — The University of Washington is being blasted after making questionable purchases with taxpayer money.

An audit conducted by the Office of the Inspector General reveals from 2010-2013, UW received nearly $300 million in grants from the National Science Foundation.

The audit found that $2 million may have been misused.

“After a while I thought they were just using this grant as their personal debit card,” Paul Guppy with the Washington Policy Center said.

Guppy said the audit is glaring.

“There appear to be some pretty strong violations here and there are things the university needs to get on top of,” Guppy added.

“We think it's a pretty good audit actually,” UW’s Norm Arkans countered.

Arkans said people need to look at the context of the audit.

“If you look at the total amount of questioned costs, it’s about 7/10s of 1 percent of all expenditures and grants,” Arkans explained.

Most of the costs, $1.8 million, were excessive salaries paid out to senior personnel, which UW said is justified.

But UW is not defending the nearly $4,000 spent on promotional items like canvas bags and custom Snuggies. Or the other $1,100 charge on more embroidered Snuggies.

“I don’t know all the details of the Snuggie purchase,” Arkans said. “They're blankets. I don’t know all the details. We agree they’re inappropriately charged.”

Then there's the $23,000 spent on a trip to Hawaii.

And more than $61,000 for equipment that was purchased just days before the grant expired.

“I was surprised,” Guppy said.

According to Guppy, the dollar amount -- no matter how large or small -- is a big deal.

“Because using public money for science research is a matter of public trust,” Guppy added.

UW agrees with some of the questionable costs and will reimburse the NSF $71,000.

Arkans says that money is from a discretionary use fund and UW won't be using any public, taxpayer or tuition money.

UW is in the audit resolution process for the rest, which is $1.9 million.

Cox Media Group