> If there are regulations governing what the university is allowed to do with federal money, the university needs administrators to ensure and report compliance
I have a friend who’s a fairly established scientist in his field. The promised cuts to NIH indirect funding would have exactly the effect you’re describing by requiring them to spend time calculating everything as direct costs for every shared resource precisely enough to survive an audit. Trying to save money there will cost more than it’s worth because most of the shared people, equipment, and resources are paid for by NIH but they’d have to add accounting staff to document which fraction gets billed to which grant at that level of precision.
I have a friend who’s a fairly established scientist in his field. The promised cuts to NIH indirect funding would have exactly the effect you’re describing by requiring them to spend time calculating everything as direct costs for every shared resource precisely enough to survive an audit. Trying to save money there will cost more than it’s worth because most of the shared people, equipment, and resources are paid for by NIH but they’d have to add accounting staff to document which fraction gets billed to which grant at that level of precision.