Boulder nonprofit returns grant funds to settle DOJ investigation

BOULDER — A Boulder-based nonprofit weather research organization has repaid more than $2.4 million to three federal agencies, grant money that the Department of Justice said was improperly drawn down for expenses not yet incurred.

The nonprofit, the Center for Severe Weather Research, said through its president that the company was found to have inadequate accounting controls. While the grant money was drawn down from federal agencies, it had not been spent.

“We’ve been receiving grants since 2004. We had annual audits. We thought we were following what we needed to do, and we happily returned unspent money, and we returned a chunk of it a year and a half ago,” Joshua Wurman, president of CSWR, told BizWest. The remainder was “sent in within hours of when they told us where to send it.”

CSWR received the grant money from the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to a press statement from the U.S. Department of Justice.

CSWR conducts scientific weather research popularly known as “storm chasing” with its “Doppler on Wheels” fleet. Based on its website, the organization investigates “tornadogenesis and structure as well as hurricane boundary layers and wind damages.” It has also investigated weather conditions within blizzards and other weather phenomena.

The Justice Department determined that CSWR had inadequate internal controls and inadequate documentation. CSWR had nine employees, Wurman said, one of whom handled accounting.

“The settlement announced today [Oct.21] also resolves allegations that the principals of CSWR, Joshua Wurman and Ling Chan, improperly obtained payments to which they were not entitled.  Those allegations, which relate primarily to rental payments for CSWR offices in their personal residence, are resolved with Dr. Wurman and Ms. Chan’s repayment to the United States of $203,776. 

“We thought we were charging rent for space that we thought was appropriate, market rate rent,” Wurman said. “We thought they knew that. A determination was made that it was not an appropriate amount to charge and they wanted less than market, a fraction of the documented incurred expenses,” he said.    

“Our office works to protect taxpayers by stopping people who wrongfully obtain federal grant money,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Matt Kirsch. “We will pursue both organizations and individuals if they improperly obtain federal funds or fail to track those funds with adequate safeguards and controls.”   

Wurman said the organization and its principals were subject to “a year and a half” of investigation and “our books [and] personal bank accounts were gone over with a microscope. They didn’t find any fraud.” He said CSWR is “100% eligible to submit proposals for future grants.”

Wurman said in a written statement that the organization has continued its research into tornadoes, hurricanes and weather radar innovation. Wurman is the lead author of a 2021 article in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society describing the updated Doppler on Wheels and a pioneering study revealing that tornadoes are much stronger than damage surveys indicate. He received the American Meteorological Society Suomi Award for technological leadership and innovation.

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