The Grand Rapids Press is reporting that a research integrity committee at Michigan State University has found professor Sharif Shakrani “guilty of research misconduct” for plagiarizing paragraphs of background information in a 2010 school-consolidation study commissioned by a group of Michigan newspapers, including AnnArbor.com.

Shakrani's study concluded that Michigan taxpayers could save as much as $612 million if local school districts across the state consolidated at the county level. AnnArbor.com reported on the results of the study last August.

MSU spokesman Kent Cassella told The Press that the misconduct relates only to the “the use of background material without attribution,” and does not affect the conclusions of Shakrani’s study. Read the full story here.