By AP/KWMU
St. Louis – Saint Louis University has agreed to pay $1 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit involving federal funding.
The suit claimed SLU's School of Public Health overstated faculty time spent on projects paid for with federal grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Andrew Balas, who was dean of the School of Public Health, alleged supplemental income of some faculty members had been inflated.
Balas said he was forced to resign from SLU for refusing to go along with improper billings. Now he'll get $190,000 for alerting authorities to the problem.
In a statement, Saint Louis University officials denied any wrongdoing, but agreed to settle to avoid legal costs.
The government is dropping the suit, but a U.S. Attorney says SLU will be subject to extra scrutiny in audits of federally funded research.