Reduce Micro Accounting of Expenditures

The government should make efforts to reduce focus on the micro accounting of grant expenditures and move towards a system where the peer review process and program managers base future funding decisions on broader measures of appropriate expenditures of cost. Princeton University suggests that one useful guide might be the IRS rules: in general, any expenditure that would normally be considered taxable income (apart from normal salary payments) would not be an allowable expense (e.g., personal travel, purchases of home items, etc.). Grant monitors would be given access to more detailed accounting information upon request.