Salary, Effort and Effort Reporting —a refresher course.

March 7, 2019

Betty Weiss, MBADirector of Research Services

Department of Medicine

Salary How much PI salary to put on a grant?

Type of grant (large vs small; federal vs non-federal or internal)

Current NIH cap is $189,600 Guidelines of agency The amount of salary/effort you put in

your budget is your COMMITMENT!

Salary SMPH recommends on an R01:

30% for 1st R01

25% for a 2nd R01 (not continuation)

Salary by roles How much other salary to put on a

grant? Effort for Co-I/Collaborators (mean same)

ConsultantOSC (Other Significant Contributor)subK vs Vendor

Staff/students Supplies: est $20,000 per FTE

MOUs Needed for faculty with VA time

commitments. Involves a cover letter which is good for

1 year and a spreadsheet updated for each grant.

PER SMPH: SMPH works 50 hours/week and the VA is 40 hours/week. Therefore 1/8=5 hours and 5/8 =50% LOA!

**

Add to budget justification

Dr. Mathur’s 0.6 cal months or 5% effort on a 0.9 FTE payrolls as 6%

OR for a 0.5FTE:Dr. Asthana’s 1.2 cal months or 10% effort on a 0.5 FTE payrolls as 20%.

Note: .9 FTE= 2/8th and .5 FTE =5/8th VA time

Rules #1 and #2 on EffortRule #1: 100% is 100%--you cannot have greater than 100% effort (which includes VA time: Total Professional Effort)!

Rule #2: Any title above a postdoc cannot be paid 100% on federal dollars. Faculty, Scientists, Lab managers—all do something that should not be paid from federal funds. Limit 90-95%!!

Rule #3Rule #3: Cost Sharing is not allowed by SMPH and UW policies—there are exceptions but make it rare!

AHA – for example, requires effort on grant but does not pay for salary

T32- PI of grant cannot be paid

What is Cost Share? Cost sharing is the portion of the total costs of a

sponsored project that is paid by the UW Cost-shared effort is any work on a sponsored

project for which the university, rather than the sponsor, provides salary support

Paid effort is work for which the sponsor provides salary support

Example – With a 30% effort commitment and salary support for 20% of the effort:

20% is paid effort10% is cost-shared effort (only in extreme

situations!!)

Effort is your work on a project, whether the sponsor pays your salary or not.

When you write yourself into a grant proposal, you are committing your effort to the sponsor. (Similar to your other support page!) Therefore: Effort Reporting=Time Commitment on grant

AND Effort=Salary

Effort Basics

It’s a piece of . . . . Pie!

1.0 FTEIf you work for the UW 100% - 100% Effort

It’s a piece of . . . . Pie!

0.5 FTEIf you work for the UW 50% - still 100% effort

It’s a piece of . . . . Pie!

0.5 FTEIf you work for the UW on 5% as a student – still 100% effort

EFFORT:

0.5 FTE

All the pie you have is 100% Effort

100% Effort

So, for 2 different funds paying a half-time person:

0.5 FTE0.5 FTE

Total Payroll

0.25 FTE

0.25 FTE

Project 2 work

Project 1 work 50% Effort

50% Effort

100% Total Effort

What is Effort?

Effort is the time you spend on an activity, expressed as a percentage of all the time you spend on your UW job duties. Your UW job duties may include:

All UW duties/roles include: Externally sponsored research University research that is not funded by an outside source Instruction and university supported academic effort, including

classroom teaching and resident training Administration, including your role as department chair, program

director, or dean Service on institutional committees such as IRBs, IACUCs, and

governance bodies Effort expended on preparing proposals for new or continuing

sponsored projects Activities related to pursuing intellectual property Public service activities directly related to UW professional duties Outreach activities that directly relate to UW professional duties Paid absences, including vacation time and sick leave

Non-UW activities Consulting outside of the UW Clinical activities for which you are compensated by the UW Medical

Foundation Veterans Administration Hospital compensated activities, which are

documented in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) Advisory activities for sponsors, such as service on an NIH study

section Peer review of manuscripts, regardless of whether you are

compensated Leadership in professional societies Lectures or presentations for which you're compensated by a source

other than the UW Other special activities resulting in a payment of a bonus or other

one-time extra compensation Activities over and above or separate from your assigned

responsibilities in your primary position, including service as the primary editor of a journal

Activities that can be allocated to a Sponsored Project (grant)

Directing or participating in any aspect of the research related to the specific project

Providing clinical patient care to human research subjects as designated in an IRB-approved research protocol

Writing a progress report for the project Holding a meeting with lab staff to discuss the specific research

project Activities contributing to and intimately related to work under

the agreement, including Participating in appropriate seminars Consulting with colleagues Delivering special lectures about your research Attending a scientific conference Reading scientific journals to keep up to date Mentoring graduate students on the specific research project

Activities that cannot be allocated to sponsored projects

Proposal-writing, except for non-competing continuations (progress reports); this includes: Developing necessary data to support the proposal Writing, editing, and submitting the proposal

Administration, including service as a department chair or dean Instruction, office hours, counseling for students, and mentoring

graduate students on something other than a specific research project

Clinical activity, except patient care for an IRB-approved sponsored research activity

Service on an IRB, IACUC, selection committee, or other similar group

Course or curriculum development not specific to your research project

Writing textbook chapters

Effort ReportingWhat is Effort Reporting? Effort certification is the university's

means of providing assurance to sponsors. To certify your effort, you'll review a statement that shows: The sources from which you were paid, Your cost-shared effort on sponsored

projects.

Effort BasicsWhose effort must be certified? Effort must be certified for all UW

faculty, staff, students, and postdoctoral researchers who either: 1. Charge part or all of their salary directly

to a sponsored project, or 2. Expend committed effort on a sponsored

project, even though no part of their salary is charged to the project.

Certification must reasonably reflect all the effort for all the activities that are covered by your UW compensation.

Effort is not based on a 40-hour work week.

If you reduce your effort, paid or unpaid, on a federal grant by 25% or more, you must have agency approval. If you reduce your paid effort, you may choose to document cost-sharing so that the total effort does not decrease.

Effort Basics

Limits on total commitments Commitments can never total more than 100%

Faculty may not be paid 100% from sponsored projects

Faculty members must use non-federal time for UW job duties, such as: teaching, advising, campus service, administration, proposal writing

Academic staff, postdocs, classified staff may be paid 100% from sponsored projects

Only if ALL of your UW job duties can be allocated to sponsored projects

Effort that is too small to count (i.e. De minimis effort)

Activities that you do on an infrequent, irregular basis can be ignoredin your effort calculations if the total amount of time would not affectyour effort distribution

– Possible examples: ad hoc department meetings, serving on a search Committee

Some activities should not be counted as separate from your UW jobduties (should not be treated as de minimis), such as:

– Requesting your parking assignment– Completing a travel expense report– Proposal writing

https://www.rsp.wisc.edu/effort/

0000

10

01

2003

5

0

15

5

41 to bal

Larger of Commitment or Payroll! Certify

Effort with NIH cap issues

Add change of effort sample

http://www.rsp.wisc.edu/forms/index.htmlCost Sharing & Commitment Updates form

Rebudgeting vs. Significant Change Rule

PIs can reduce the salary charges for one project staff member and increase salary charges for another (including themselves), therefore changing level of effort and commitment…

…BUT any significant changes in work activity require prior approval from the sponsor and commitment changes must be documented

Significant Changes:PI disengagement from the project for more than 3 months;A 25% (or greater) reduction in the level of committed effort

over budget period for PI and Key Persons listed on NOA (Note: Changes in committed effort are measured against the commitment at the time the award is issued)

Change in PIChange in key personnel listed on NOA

No-cost extensions Award terms and conditions apply throughout the project

period, including a no-cost extension period At the same time, sponsors recognize that PI effort may be

reduced as the project is winding down; current policy if commitment is met, PI can go to “0”.

No Cost Extension requests are routed and managed using WISPER

– If there are changes in commitment, this must be indicated in your WISPER record RSP will then update PeopleSoft fields on the project, award,

and SFS extensions so that the updated commitment percentage is loaded into ECRT.

Effort Certification Red Flags The following areas are receiving significant attention nationally:• 100% research faculty - are they involved in activities that should be funded by sources other than their grants?• Faculty with 5 or more federal awards - are they overcommitted? Are the percentages of salary distributed to each of their projects reasonable?• Change in Level of Effort - are PIs seeking permission to change the level of effort proposed in their grant when required (typically when the change is 25% or more)?• Faculty with 1 or 2% of their effort on many awards - are they contributing the effort promised?• Faculty Effort Certification - is it timely? Is it accurate?• Retroactive Salary Cost Transfers - are they infrequent, but timely when necessary? Of particular concern are those affecting time periods for which faculty have already certified their effort.• Total effort commitments (paid and cost shared) to the sponsor - are they met?• University effort reporting policy - is it being followed?

Thank You for attending!