Definition of Sponsored Research
Assistance with Budget PreparationFringe Benefits
Facilities & Administrative Cost RatesRGA Post Award Basics
Management of Funds
Award Processing
Processing Time
Advance Account / Preaward CostsReview of Expenditures (Requisitions & Personnel)
SubcontractsFacilities & Administrative Costs on Subcontracts
Rebudgeting
Agency Regulations
Monitoring AccountsProject Director's Responsibilities
Deficit BalancesFacilities & Administrative Costs
Reporting (Technical and Financial)
Effort Reporting
ARE NOT AVAILABLE OUTSIDE
THE MUOT CAMPUS NETWORK]
Research and Grants Administration (RGA) can help in the preparation of budgets
for grant proposals. If you have a rough idea of how the funds will be used,
RGA will review the costs in relation to the awarding agency policies as well
as MUOT policies. Some agencies have their forms available
on-line and they can be downloaded for your use. PHS
Form 398 (for competing proposals)and PHS
Form 2590 (for continuations) are available customized for MUOT
through this web site. Information regarding MUOT's current Fringe
Benefit Rates and Facilities & Administrative Cost Rates
is also available.
AWARD PROCESSING
Once a notice of award for a grant/contract has been received by Research and
Grants Administration (RGA), it is reviewed to ensure that the terms and conditions
of the award agreement are acceptable and that all regulatory compliance issues
have been approved. Most award agreements are acceptable in the form in which
they are received, however, circumstances may occur that require further reviews,
approvals and/or negotiations. If terms or conditions of an award agreement
are in conflict or otherwise inconsistent with MUOT policies or state laws and
regulations, RGA staff will negotiate revisions with the funding agency. The
time required will depend upon agency response. Review by MUOT legal counsel
may be required if particularly complex or unusual language is used in the award
agreement. This would increase the amount of time required for processing. For
this reason, it is best to have any agreements reviewed and approved at the
pre-award stage. Each award should have an approved proposal on file and, if
the award is substantially the same as the proposal, the time required to activate
an account will be minimal. An award received without an approved proposal on
file will not be accepted until all such proposal documents and approvals have
been received and approved by RGA.
PROCESSING TIME
When all necessary approvals have been obtained, including those of the agency
when required, the award notice will be sent to Institutional Accounting (IA)
for processing. IA will notify the principal investigator when an account number
has been assigned. The principal investigator should allow five working days
after receipt of all documents by RGA to obtain an account number.
ADVANCE ACCOUNT/PREAWARD COSTS
Circumstances may require the establishment of an account prior to receipt of
an award. The principal investigator should discuss the circumstances with RGA
then complete a Departmental Request to Open a Restricted Account form. There
is always an element of risk in starting project work prior to formal award
notification, therefore this form must be signed by the Department Chairperson
or Dean who will subsequently be responsible for any unallowable project costs.
REVIEW OF EXPENDITURES (REQUISITIONS &
PERSONNEL)
Virtually all charges against grant accounts are reviewed by Research
and Grants Administration (RGA) prior to processing. Purchase requisitions,
travel expense reimbursements and personnel actions are analyzed for compliance
with awarding agency and MUOT policies, appropriateness, regulatory compliance
and availability of funds. To expedite the processing of these actions, forms
should be sent directly to RGA after departmental approvals are obtained.
SUBCONTRACTS
Occasionally you may require a faculty member at another institution
to collaborate with you on a funded project. If that person is performing part
of the proposed work at their institution, funds to pay for that work would
be transferred from MUOT (the prime grantee) to the other institution (the subrecipient)
by means of a subcontract/subagreement. Subcontracts are awarded to an organization
or institution, not to an individual.
The total amount of the subcontract is included as a line item on the MUOT direct
cost budget. A detailed description of what is included in the subcontract should
be provided. Normally the budget breakdown submitted by a potential subcontractor
should be approved by an authorized official of subcontractor's institution
to indicate that all institutional conditions have been satisfied.
If you are being included in another organization's proposal (where MUOT is the
subcontractor), your budget, scope of work, etc. must be submitted to RGA just
like any other proposal. RGA must approve and sign the proposed subcontract
prior to sending it to the other institution. (see Institutional Approval
Process section in 
MUOT Sponsored Programs
Policy)
FACILITIES & ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS ON SUBCONTRACTS
FROM MUOT TO OTHER INSTITUTIONS
If the Facilities & Administrative Costs (FAC) are calculated at
the Federal rate, only FAC on the first $25,000 of the subcontract are collected.
In a multiple-year project the total subcontract amount across all years is
considered in calculating the FAC. Please contact RGA for assistance before
calculating FAC on a project proposing a subcontract.
REBUDGETING
Sponsors have different budget flexibility policies. RGA staff can
help you determine whether the award agreement and sponsor permit reallocation
among budget categories. A written request to the sponsor, counter-signed by
RGA, may be required. Any rebudgeting request to the sponsor must detail why
this request will be beneficial toward accomplishing originally proposed scope
of work for the project.
Most federal granting agencies have implemented "expanded authorities"
for most grantees allowing them to rebudget as needed. These expanded authorities
are issued to the institution, not the principal investigator. Therefore budget
changes must be processed through RGA, but most will not require federal agency
approval.
AGENCY REGULATIONS
Most awarding agencies issue policies for the administration of the
awarded funds. As an educational institution, MUOT is covered under OMB
Circular A-21 for most federal awards. PHS policies are also found
in the PHS Grants
Policy Statement, while NSF policies are found in the NSF
Grant Policy Manual. The management of all sponsored project funding must
first follow the policies of the awarding component, then MUOT policies and then
State of Ohio policies. (see also Management of Funds section in MUOT Sponsored Programs
Policy)
PROJECT DIRECTOR'S RESPONSIBILITIES
The project director (principal investigator) is ultimately responsible for
accomplishing the technical goals of the project and also for fiscal management
in accordance with all sponsor and institutional regulations. RGA provides advice
and assistance to facilitate compliance with the regulations. The project director's
fiscal responsibilities include:
1) Understanding the sponsor's general policies and specific terms and conditions covering the agreement.
2) Authorizing only those expenditures which are reasonable and necessary to accomplish the project goals and are consistent with the sponsor's terms and conditions.
3) Spending no more than the amount authorized by the sponsor for the project period.
4) Adhering to sponsor limitations on the amount of money that may be spent in any single budget category, when necessary.
5) Charging project costs directly to the appropriate project account (avoiding cost transfers as cost transfers are highly suspect during audit).
The project director or department administrator is also responsible for initiating
personnel allocations.
RGA monitors expenditures as they are incurred (see Review of Expenditures) and budget balances on
a monthly basis. Memos are often sent to notify the project director of any
potential disallowance, overexpenditure, underexpenditure or correction that
may needed.
DEFICIT BALANCES
If the project's expenditures exceed the sponsor's award upon completion of
the project, the project director will be asked to identify another funding
source (normally a nonsponsored source) to cover the cost overrun. If such arrangements
are not made, the deficit may be withheld from the department's research incentive
distribution.
FACILITIES & ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS
(FAC)
FAC are costs incurred by the university that cannot be readily identified or
associated with a single sponsored project or institutional function. Typical
examples are utilities, public safety, building and equipment use and maintenance,
libraries, student administrative services, personnel, payroll, accounting ,
information systems and purchasing. Since these costs cannot be identified with
specific projects, all projects are assessed on a prorata basis.
The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has established procedures for
institutions of higher education to determine universities' FAC rates. Ratios
are developed that relate these FAC to the direct costs of the primary functions
of the institution, such as instruction, organized research and other activities.
The resulting rates are then reviewed by MUOT's federal audit agency, final rates
are negotiated and a formal rate agreement is signed. For the current rate see
Important MUOT Numbers
for Proposal Preparation.
The established FAC rates apply to all agreements with MUOT unless other mandatory
stipulations apply. All variations from these rates must receive prior approval
RGA.
REPORTING TO SPONSOR (TECHNICAL AND FINANCIAL)
The project director is responsible for interim technical progress reports,
deliverables involving technical results and final technical report. One copy
of each technical report should be provided to RGA for the institution's official
project file.
The office of Institutional Accounting (IA) will prepare and submit all
financial reports and invoices to the sponsor. IA also operates in an accounts
receivable capacity and pursues prompt payment of sponsor commitments. Occasionally,
difficulty is experienced in collecting amounts owed by sponsors, in which case
project directors might be consulted as to whether it is in their and the institution's
best interest to continue work on the project.
EFFORT REPORTING
As a recipient of Federal funding, MUOT is required under OMB
Circular A-21
to document the distribution of charges to grant funds for personal services.
To fulfill this requirement, MUOT uses an after-the-fact activity reporting system
commonly called "Effort Reporting". The Effort Reporting forms are
distributed to each department every six months. Each employee or their supervisor
is asked to complete and return the form to account for 100% of their institutional
effort. This information is used to confirm that the amount of salary charged
to a project budget is equal to or less than the actual fraction of effort spent
on that project. It is the project director's responsibility to ensure the actual
level of effort corresponds to the reported level of effort, whether paid for
by the sponsor or cost-shared by MUOT.
Page Updated: 5/10/2004
research@meduohio.edu