More trouble in Wheeling Jesuit city:

A woman who says she lost her job at Wheeling Jesuit University after questioning the way the school billed administrative expenses for government grants has filed a whistleblower lawsuit in Ohio County Circuit Court.

The lawsuit filed by Catherine Smith, at one time the manager of finance for Wheeling Jesuit’s sponsored programs, alleges she was subjected to a hostile work environment, threatened with demotion and eventually fired after reporting problems in the way [NASA] grant funds were being used to her superiors.

Her superiors being the folks we have come to know and mistrust because of their firing of Rev. Julio Giulietti SJ as president last August.

Smith:

Rather than correct the deficiencies . . . she was harassed by her supervisor, [now acting President] Davitt McAteer, and threatened with demotion, and when she complained to higher-ups the school’s legal counsel concluded her claims were groundless.

Subsequently, she found fault with a male employee, discussed it with him one-on-one, and got fired, using her fault-finding “as a pretext.”  She also 

accuses the school of creating a hostile work environment, slander, intentionally inflicting emotional distress and retaliation.

NASA got wind of it, investigated,

and in an August memorandum concluded NASA had “inappropriately” reimbursed Wheeling Jesuit for more than $4 million in incorrectly billed and sometimes “duplicative” charges.

But NASA blamed no one, except in effect those who trained and oversaw grant officers.  An earlier investigation, in January 2006, had concluded that nothing could be proven about “improper” firings by program managers or awarding of sweetheart sub-contracts.

Unnamed university officials said the same thing:

“Contrary to suggestions in the suit, NASA did not investigate the university. It reviewed the agency’s own internal controls related to the oversight of grants and cooperative agreements with the university. NASA made no findings that anyone at the university engaged in any irregularities or misused any federal funds, whatsoever. . . . [Its] cost allocation methodologies have been fully disclosed and received long-standing approval from NASA.”

Announcement of the August ‘09 memo preceded the Giulietti ouster-cum-McAteer- elevation by one day, leading some to think G. was booted because of it. Inside Higher Ed questioned that, noting that it was McAteer who “had oversight of the NASA projects.”

It also noted that Fr. Ed Glynn, both a director and a trustee, had wondered who appointed McAteer, he knowing nothing of it before reading a press release.