Officials at the University of Rhode Island say they are inspecting the finances of a research center on the Kingston campus founded by a former academic administrator now under federal investigation in Kentucky for fraud.

Robert Felner, former director of URI’s School of Education, has been under investigation by the U.S. Postal Service and the Secret Service since June for alleged misappropriation of federal grants. Federal agents visited the campus on at least two occasions this summer, looking for information on Felner.

URI officials say the investigation has prompted them to review the finances of the National Center on Public Education and Social Policy, which Felner established at URI in the late 1990s. Robert A. Weygand, URI’s vice president of administration, says he hopes to issue a report of the findings at the end of this week.

The office of David L. Huber, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky, said last week that the fraud investigation will probably continue into October.

Felner, a highly regarded researcher, left his $174,000-a-year job at URI in June 2003 to become dean of the University of Louisville’s College of Education and Human Development. He continued to serve as director of the educational research center he founded at URI until 2006 in an unpaid capacity, according to URI officials.

According to The Louisville Courier-Journal, Felner’s tenure at the University of Louisville was marked by success in securing millions of dollars in grants and by stormy relations with some faculty and staff, who held a no-confidence vote against him in 2006.

Felner, 58, had been scheduled to become chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside on July 1. But he declined the appointment in late June after federal authorities launched a criminal investigation into a $694,000 federal grant Felner received that apparently never went toward its intended purpose — to start a No Child Left Behind Center in collaboration with the Kentucky Education Department.

According to e-mail records obtained by The Courier-Journal through an open-records request, Felner sent about $130,000 in University of Louisville funds to the URI center after learning it was experiencing cash-flow problems. Such a move, Louisville university officials told The Courier-Journal, “may violate university policies and could result in consequences as serious as dismissal.”

URI has declined a similar open-records request by The Providence Journal for e-mail records between Felner and URI’s National Center on Public Education and Social Policy.

However, Weygand said the university is aware of the e-mails and is conducting its own investigation into the center’s finances.

“We are reviewing all grants, memoranda, paperwork — anything that had to do with Mr. Felner while he was here, and after,” Weygand said. “We just want to make sure that all management and business aspects were done properly.”

The series of e-mails in 2005 between Felner and Anne Seitsinger, acting director of the center and an associate professor at URI, indicate the URI center was low on funds. Seitsinger wrote that she didn’t know if she could pay staff salaries.

Around that time, Diana Laferriere, business manager for the center, e-mailed Felger asking “are you giving out loans? We sure need one right now.”

According to the e-mails, Felner directed about $130,000 to the URI center. In addition, Felner “told officials at the National Center on Public Education and Social Policy … to submit a bill to the [University of Louisville] for research work, but use the money for center salaries and future work,” the paper reported last month.

Seitsinger did not respond to Providence Journal requests for an interview. Felner’s fourth wife, Marilyn, known as Mel, filed for divorce in June. According to the divorce papers, she continues to live in their home in Narragansett. A URI systems support technician, Marilyn Felner declined a request for an interview.

Weygand said that the URI center, which conducts research and develops school surveys, has about seven employees, down from a high a few years ago of 14. He said that no one had been removed since the university began its investigation.

Weygand said it was not unusual for a center financed through grants to experience cash-flow problems, as grants are often delayed.

“However, how you handle that is what’s important,” Weygand said. “We were very concerned about those [media] reports, so we are reviewing that as part of our investigation.”

jjordan@projo.com