What are the key components of the policy?

Answer

A key requirement of the new policy is that payroll records (for those paid on sponsored funds) must reflect the effort actually spent on sponsored projects during the pay period. Faculty and research staff salary that is paid from sponsored projects should correspond to work that they do, during the period that they actually do it.

The new definition of Institutional Base Salary includes academic year salary and academic year professorship stipends, but not administrative stipends.  As required by federal uniform guidance, the principles of IBS apply to calculation of summer salary for all employees, regardless of source of funds.

Most researchers participate in activities that are not allowed to be charged to sponsored funds. To address this, a faculty or staff member shall not charge more than 95% of his/her university effort to sponsored projects during any given appointment period. This policy requires accurate accounting and distribution of effort funded by sponsored projects, and will mitigate the risk of financial penalties in the future.

The Principal Investigator continues to be responsible for confirming that reporting on actual sponsored effort for his/her research team is accurate.