Vague Titles: Indirect Costs
After searching IllinoisOpenGov.org, a transparency project carried out by the Illinois Policy Institute that posts government spending, I found the Illinois Department of Public Health has a “Category of Spending” dubbed “Indirect Costs.” With such a non-descriptive title one might expect it would include smaller, difficult-to-classify purchases.
That said, there are two listings for “Indirect Costs,” both for Maximus Inc., totaling $53,193.
What exactly does “Indirect Costs” cover; how does Maximus Inc provide for “Indirect Costs”; and is there a better way to classify the spending than “Indirect Costs”?
After speaking with the Department of Public Health, it seems that “indirect costs” are costs associated with furthering federal government initiatives in Illinois, i.e. hiring personnel.
There are no other listings for Maximus, Inc. in the Department of Public Health.
Indirect Costs is a vague title. A prerequisite of transparency requires clear, straightforward titles and enough detail explaining what each title means.
To find this: go to IllinoisOpenGov.org, find Checks to Businesses & People, click Department of Public Health under Department, then click Category of Spending to list in alphabetical order and scroll down to I.
I had never head of Maximus, so I surprised to find it has its own page on Wikipedia. It is a very large company.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximus_Inc.
There is over $4 million in expenditures for 2008 and 2009 fiscal years for other agencies. Some look like duplicate entries, but possibly not.