New York Medical College (NYMC) officials thought the HHS Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) audit was wrapping up in December 2021, based on what “the original senior auditor” told them. But the auditor retired and work continued under a scope that was “significantly expanded, without clear explanation,” in the words of Salomon Amar, NYMC vice dean of research and senior vice president for research affairs for its affiliate, Touro University.[1]
It would be another three years before OIG issued the audit, which it posted online May 14. Included is Amar’s somewhat blistering 11-page response to a draft of the report, which uses versions of the word “disagrees” five times.
Although the audit “covered 24 NIH awards totaling $17,172,846,” findings stem from an analysis of 92 transactions totaling $143,508, expended from 2017 to 2019. Auditors also reviewed NYMC’s financial conflict of interest (FCOI) disclosures and training to assess compliance with NIH policies.
NYMC’s biggest beef with the auditors: a finding questioning “$7,469,306 in salaries, fringe benefits, and related indirect costs that were unsupported,” which they said NYMC should hash out with NIH. But the audit also shows NYMC defending nearly every dollar questioned. For example, NYMC “provided additional documentation supporting $113 in previously disallowed direct travel costs ($69) and related indirect costs ($44).” In terms of repayment recommendations, auditors said they reduced the amount of questioned costs from $73,628 to $73,515. NYMC agreed to pay back approximately half this amount.
NYMC also accused OIG of “stubbornly” sticking to a finding it disputed that it violated salary requirements by exceeding NIH’s cap and conditioning a principal investigator’s (PI) increase on maintaining external funding. Neither Amar nor NYMC’s vice president of communications responded to RRC’s request for comment on the audit.
For their part, auditors stuck by their conclusions, sometimes using strong (for an audit report) language. For example, “we refute the assertion that we expanded the original scope of the audit,” they wrote.
No Foreign-Related Findings Made
In providing background for the audit, the report noted that “prior OIG work highlighted an increased need for transparency in research funding and identified several areas in which NIH could improve how it oversees the billions of dollars in grants for research that it awards each year. More specifically, OIG previously identified NIH’s oversight of awards to foreign applicants as a risk to [HHS] in terms of meeting program goals and the appropriate use of Federal funds.”
As OIG explained, NYMC’s report is part of a “series of audits of institutions of higher education, and based on our risk assessment” of NYMC. What the risk assessment revealed is not mentioned. Moreover, auditors did not use the word “foreign” beyond the generic mention in the introduction of the report; NYMC’s audit contains no findings linked to foreign-related issues.
Auditors also called attention to a 2019 report that found more than half of surveyed institutions with NIH awards had not posted FCOI policies online, as required.
According to Amar, the audit “commenced during the COVID pandemic in 2020 as a remote review, an unusual situation for both the College and the auditors. The original Senior Auditor notified the College that he had completed his audit work and was working to complete the written report when he retired in December 2021.” After a new primary auditor took over, “the audit was not immediately finalized, but instead the original scope of the audit was significantly expanded, without clear explanation, and the audit continued for almost two additional years,” Amar wrote in NYMC’s response.
