"There's an agreement with the federalgovernment that we'll improve our reporting,"Segall says.

"The federal government has asked Harvard toproduce reports in a more timely fashion," headds.

According to Proctor, Harvard has haddifficulty providing the NIH with the informationit requires.

"My first day on the job, I got a sanctionletter," says Proctor, who worked at Harvard from1994 through 1996. He says the NIH withdrew thesanctions six months later, after "intense"efforts from the University to improve itsreporting.

Segall says the government has also beencracking down on other universities, asking forbetter reports of how they spend their nationalgrants.

Equally important, Harvard must facilitate itsown record keeping. Currently, each school actsseparately, working on its own definitions anddeciding unilaterally how much to spend to supportits assets.

"Financial and administrative deans concludedthat it was too expensive for every faculty tooperate and maintain its own system," Segall says.

Project ADAPT will enable Harvard to givetimely reports to the Corporation which will makeclear "what schools could run into financialproblems down the road," Segall says.

The Road Ahead

With these needs still pressing, it isimpossible to predict if the rest of ADAPT'simplementation will go more smoothly.

Phase I-"the core financials"-is expected to beavailable on-line this July. After they "go live,"ADAPT managers will spend the next six monthsworking out the kinks and hope finally to lay thefirst part of the project to rest.

Phase I was originally budgeted to cost $45million dollars-even with a 20 percent costoverrun built in. It is now expected to run morein the neighborhood of $60 million.

Once they have finished with Phase I, ADAPTwill attempt to tackle the last two piecessimultaneously.

Phase II will deal with human resources,payroll and benefits, and Segall expects it to becompleted by 2001.

Phase III will deal with other financialsystems, such as grants, and should finish at thesame time as Phase II.