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Comment by droithomme | Hacker News Reader

They claim the professor and his students did 6000 hrs of work testing samples (that's an especially round number), which they valued at an average of $27.74/hr even though everyone was a volunteer and no one was asking to be paid. This is how they came up with an estimate of a labor value of $166,487 for this voluntary work for which no students who did the work were paid or asked to be paid.

It is extremely misleading and deceptive here to say that the professor spent $147,000 because he did not spend $147,000 at all. He spent 11200+3180+50 = $14,430 and he received 32843+200+500+200 = $33,743 in grants and fees he charged for speaking, for a surplus of $19,313.

Furthermore, the money being raised is going into an account supervised by the lead. It is not being used to pay the people who did the work for their time. This is especially outrageous that he is collecting money for their volunteer work and keeping it for his own use.

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Through no fault of your own, I believe you are misreading this key paragraph:

> That’s a net deficit of $147,174, which Edwards covered with his own discretionary research and personal funds. The Flint Water Study team of 25 students and research scientists also estimated their total donated labor at more than 6,000 hours, which they valued at over $165,000 based on the hourly rates of the team members.

So it was an estimated $165k in free labor on top of the rest of the costs. You are confused because their lab costs were $166,487, which is a similar number.

If basis of your claims is same article that has been posted here. it says here:

> $180,917 in expenses for sampling, water tests, laboratory supplies, and more.

This is the out of pocket expense they are talking about. It doesn't even involve the hours spent. So unless you can disapprove that sampling costs for water tests didn't cost $166,487 - we have little reason to trust your claim.

Regardless, lets say even if that $166,487 indeed includes their hourly rates for which no one was asked to be paid, their claim is justified. Heck no one asked them to do this in first place.

There is time and place to be cynical but I don't think this is the one. I personally can't applaud them enough for work them have done.

The $165,000 they estimated for labor was in addition to the other costs. They aren't trying to recoup that.

The $166,487 is actual costs incurred, not the volunteers estimated labor

It looks like you took the number closest to 165k in the spreadsheet (166487) and divided it by 6000 to get to your numbers. That might be weakly implied in the article, but the GoFundMe page says that the donated labor is in addition to the cash expenses (and the money is explicitly listed as out of pocket expenses):

>The deficit of $147,174 in out of pocket expenses has been covered by Professor Edwards’ discretionary research and personal funds. We also conservatively estimate that our total donated labor exceeds 3.0 person years (well over $165,000) of effort.

You are directly contradicting the table presented in the article as well as in the main site: http://flintwaterstudy.org/2016/01/the-flintwaterstudy-resea...

Did you not read the article or did you have some better source where you are getting your data?! Going by the article, the GoFundMe page and the project site itself it seems perfectly clear what money they spent, how they spent it, and also how much volunteer time was also donated.

I don't understand why you would launch a personal attack against Professor Edwards and his team by just making up numbers and trying to stir up controversy where there is none.

The volunteers are not expected to be paid. Their time was freely donated and it's clear in the GoFundMe where the funds are going and how they will be used.

Headline: "Professor Marc Edwards Spent $147,000..." fine print: "...a net deficit of $147,174, which Edwards covered with his own discretionary research and personal funds..."

So...how much research money was within his discretionary budget? It's a bit of a stretch to call that "his own funds".

He is essentially using his own money to do what the local and state governments should have done. His discretionary funds could have been used to buy equipment for his lab in order to help him get research grants. Instead, they were spent to do water testing in a different city and in a different state. He isn't going to receive any research grants or meaningful scientific publications out of this, which is essentially the job of a university professor. That's why it is portrayed as such a sacrifice.

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