Attorney General Starts Billing Agencies For Indirect Costs

For years, assistant attorneys general have worked in the Comptroller’s Office, paid out of the comptroller’s budget.

Last week, the Comptroller’s Office received an invoice for $22,284 from the Attorney General’s Office for costs related to those attorneys.

“There was no itemized bill, no explanation of the charges,” said Christine Feldmann, deputy director of communications for the office. Staff in the Comptroller’s Office is scrambling to investigate the source and reasoning behind the bill before paying it.

They aren’t the only ones. The legislature passed a new budget policy directing the Office of the Attorney General to recover indirect costs from government departments. It resulted in similar invoices being sent out to most state agencies and universities last week. Combined, the agencies have been billed a total of $1,084,488 – an amount cut from the central budget of the Attorney General’s Office in the fiscal 2012 budget process last spring.

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