I wonder if that was a last minute buy in order to complete that semester's budget.

Besides honesty, bureaucrats love to punish thriftiness too. You're proud that you saved 5% of your allocated grant? Good, that means next year you'll only get 95% of the requested funds.

But Amy, they to put something in those 'safe' spaces.

That pales in comparison to the $400,000 grant for the production of the feminist glaciers paper.

I looked at the report, and, disturbingly, many of these purchases were made about 12 seconds before researchers' grants expired.

That's not supposed to happen. That's UDub's Sponsored Research department's fault for allowing such.

When my work place tries to zero out a soon to expire grant, our Sponsored Research requires us to get written authorization from the funding agency that they authorize us to spend that money.

@Cousin Dave,

In other words, the sky is blue. BUT, you need a scientific base to confirm that the sky is blue; that's why because molecules in the air scatter blue light from the sun more than they scatter red light. (see http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/BlueSky/blue_sky.html)

So you need that $400,000 grant as a valid evidence to confirm that Feminists are big and frigid

Good lord.

The universities are getting as brazen as the police, the military, and the bureaucrats!

Sixclaws; no need to wonder - that happens ALL the time.

You're right in that bureaucracy "punishes" thrift by taking away money not used; but, bureaucracy also "rewards" spending by giving more money to those who spend it all and then cannot complete the work due to "lack of funding."

The only fault of these folks mentioned here is that they spent the money on, oh so obvious, frivolous items - snuggies.

Now if they had planned ahead and purchased items, such as those computer mice, weeks before they might not have been noticed. They could have made some claim about those specific items performing better or whatever. It's those snuggies that just stand out and make the other stuff look suspicious.

Years ago I was working on a project at a for-profit company. Our group was struggling to get all the work done without having enough staff; while the group sitting next to us had "pizza parties" every week and once a month would have lunch meetings out at a local restaurant claiming it was for "team building."

That was at a for-profit company, so how they spend their money is their business (and the shareholders too; who might not be pleased if they knew the whole story!); but, government bureaucracies are the worst because they are spending "other people's money" and not caring. There isn't much of an oversight and when people do get caught what happens to them? Nothing. If the for-profit finds out they might fire someone. But, that doesn't happen in government. The guilty parties might be transferred; or, ha!, they might get a promotion instead.

"You're right in that bureaucracy "punishes" thrift by taking away money not used."

Not only that, but if you don't spend all of the money you are appropriated in a given fiscal year, your budget will be slashed the next year.

We had a visiting scientist at my previous university borrow the charge card to go get supplies at the local hardware store. On his way out, he threw in a $1.29 ice cream bar. He couldn't understand why everyone was so angry at him. The amount of work to get that ice cream bar cleared and reimbursed to the university was epic.

Generally, up-coming scientists/academics are not given any training in how spending rules work. I ran into that as a postdoc when I didn't realize all government funded travel originating in the country must use a U.S. carrier.

Welcome to government budgeting. Either use up your whole budget this year or risk getting less next year. Being efficient in government does not pay. Use up that budget in any way possible.

Government logic.

I was at the US Post Office earlier today and saw a sign on the passport department door telling people the office was open weekdays from 1-4, but with the recent increased demand for passports, the office reserved the right to cull the line and close before 4. In other words, in times of heightened demand for the product they sell, the seller will close up early rather than meet the demand.

"Welcome to government budgeting. Either use up your whole budget this year or risk getting less next year. "

Yep. The ideal funding profile for most R&D projects is a camel-back profile: a little funding at the start to get things going, a lot in the middle when a lot of work is taking place, and then ramp down towards the end. But the way government tends to fund them is the exact opposite of that: there's a ton of money right at the beginning when it's the hot new thing; funding gets slashed as the newness wears off and results aren't immediately apparent, and then it gets jacked up again near the end when the goal is in sight. The influx at the beginning creates a mad rush to allocate the money and get contractors on board. The funding cuts in the middle cause layoffs and schedule stretch-outs, which makes the appropriators unhappy and results in program cancellation threats, raising the level of anxiety and hurting morale. The burst of money at the end winds up rewarding the people who are there at the end, while people who put in a lot of hard work earlier in the program get forgotten about.

" In other words, in times of heightened demand for the product they sell, the seller will close up early rather than meet the demand."

The sons-a-bitches at the Social Security office in Aiken, SC are open 27 hours per week.

Yeah. Public servants, my ass.