Scholarly activity incurs two types of costs.
Scholars also make use of the libraries, their labs are heated, facilities are depreciated, secretarial assistance may be available in the departmental office paychecks are issued and accounting reports are filed. The costs of such services are not easy to assign to particular projects, and come under the category of Indirect Costs. Indirect costs are typically calculated as a fraction of Modified Total Direct Costs. Temple negotiates all its indirect cost rates with the federal Department of Health and Human Services, the agency designated to negotiate indirect cost recovery rates for most federal grants and contracts. In 1991, Temple supplied federal auditors with information on its actual expenditures for research, instruction, and public service.