Eastern was audited Wednesday for overestimating the university’s contribution toward a federal grant.

Grant funds of $304,000 were given to Eastern in June 2000 to train teachers on computers through May 31 of last year.

According to federal guidelines, the university was required to contribute that amount into teaching efforts.

However, Eastern overestimated contributions by $33,000, according to a report by state Auditor General William Holland.

The university didn’t overestimate the amount, said Mary Bower, assistant to the dean of the College of Education and Professional Studies.

“The grant was not overestimated,” she said. “Our estimate of the EIU expenditures was incorrect, but Eastern did meet the federal requirement for the university contribution.”

The audit will not affect monies for future grants.

“We do not have any concerns about future funding because the federal officer for this grant is satisfied, as we are, that Eastern met all federal guidelines under the grant,” Bower said.

All university grants are audited every year, she said.

The grant audited this week, Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology, had a report due last April. But, “the grant period actually ran through May, so we had to use estimates,” Jeff Cooley, vice president for business affairs, said Wednesday. “We could have just done a better job in estimating.”

The university estimated the amount of time employees would be working on the grant, instead of using detailed records kept by the employees of actual time spent, according to Holland’s report.

A faculty stipend of $4,000 was reported in the contribution, but the employee’s task was not for the same purpose as the grant, according to the report.

“According to university personnel who prepared the report, the above miscalculations were due to oversight,” the report stated. “The university disagreed with our findings because it believed the estimates used had no impact, nor did they result in questioned cost.”

Eastern had over $8.7 million invested in computer hardware and about 3,000 users had access to “administrative computing resources.”

The report recommended Eastern enforce security controls in the university computer systems and networks, and indicated Eastern has responded by correcting the network issues.