University of Iowa worker routed almost $1 million away from university, into personal bank accounts: Report

The manager of a machine shop at the University of Iowa is accused of diverting around $1 million into personal bank accounts that should have gone to the school.

Brian Busch, the former manger of a machine shop at the University of Iowa’s physics and astronomy department, allegedly diverted  $951,490 in funds that should have gone to the university, but instead went to his own firm, and then into personal bank accounts, according to Higher Ed Dive.

Busch worked out a deal with the university department in 2018 to contract jobs through Xometry, which is a manufacturing network specializing in making parts, according to a state audit. 

Of the jobs performed by the university machine shop for customers of Xometry, which totaled 636, exactly 587 of them were paid to D3T, a company that Busch himself owned, the audit found. The audit alleged that Busch didn’t disclose that he owned D3T.

$951,490 was paid by Xometry to the firm Busch owned, and $74,639 went to the university’s machine shop. 

According to the state auditors report, Busch also allegedly offered to pay employees with cash in exchange for not logging hours.

Busch was placed on paid leave in September 2021, and terminated on Aug. 28. Two other employees were also put on paid leave as a result of the investigation. One of them left the university, and the other was fired.

The audit was handed to the state attorney general as well as criminal investigators.

In a statement, the University of Iowa said it is “investigating all potential avenues to recoup wages paid to these individuals during the period of their leave.”

”Following the completion of the internal audit, the Machine Shop updated its job intake and tracking procedures, recording jobs as they are assigned, in-progress, completed, or deleted. This ensures that work performed in the Machine Shop is properly documented and included in monthly shop accounting. The university continues to review the state audit and will adopt any recommendations not previously addressed in the internal audit,” the university wrote.