Federal agents have visited the University of Rhode Island’s South Kingstown campus at least twice in the past two months as part of an investigation into possible fraud by a former URI official, according to the university’s lawyer.

Robert Felner, former dean of URI’s School of Education, is under investigation for alleged misappropriation of about $500,000 in federal grants while working at the University of Louisville College of Education and Human Development, the post he assumed after he left URI in 2003.

Felner also headed URI’s National Center on Public Education and Social Policy and remained involved with the center until 2004, although he did not receive a salary for the last year, said Louis J. Saccoccio, URI’s general counsel. Felner earned about $174,000 a year at URI, and was responsible for bringing in $6.8 million in grants during his six years at the university.

University officials in Louisville were concerned about a $694,000 federal grant Felner received that apparently never went toward its intended purpose –– to establish a No Child Left Behind center in collaboration with the Kentucky Education Department, according to The Louisville Courier-Journal. University officials alerted federal officials, who launched a criminal investigation. The U.S. Postal Service and Secret Service, which investigates financial crimes involving federal funds, are investigating jointly with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Kentucky.

“We typically don’t comment on criminal investigation, but since the University of Louisville already released a statement, we can confirm that there is an investigation,” said U.S. Attorney David L. Huber by phone last week. “It is still ongoing, but we expect the matter will probably come to a head in the next month or so.” Huber said fraud investigations typically take longer, “but this will be a short one,” he said.

Felner was scheduled to become chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside July 1, but resigned his appointment in late June after learning of the investigation.

A team of Secret Service agents came to South Kingstown late last month and again earlier this month, Saccoccio said, and asked about contracts URI had with the research foundation at the University of Louisville, specifically with Felner. Saccoccio said the agents did not remove any files or computers.

“There have been two visits by the Secret Service — there may have been one other one, I’m not sure — and they were interested in any contracts we had with the research foundation at the University of Louisville,” Saccoccio said. “We did have two subcontracts for $60,000 each, to collect and prepare data for research, similar to the SALT survey.”

While in Rhode Island, Felner developed the SALT survey, known nationally as the High Performance Learning Communities Assessment, which has been used for several years in the state’s public schools to improve school culture.

Saccoccio said that preliminary reviews of the grants Felner oversaw at URI have found no irregularities.

A spokesman for the Rhode Island Department of Education said past work Felner performed for the department, including creating and analyzing the SALT survey, was satisfactory.

jjordan@projo.com