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NIH Salary Cap (Effective Jan 1, 2024)
$221,900
For active awards, including awards that have been issued in FY 2024 (continuation and new) that were restricted to Executive Level II, if adequate funds are available, and if the salary cap increase is consistent with the institutional base salary, recipients may rebudget funds to accommodate the current Executive Level II salary level.
NIH Salary Cap - Definition
Limits the monthly pay rate that can be charged to an NIH grant for individuals working on grants, cooperative agreement awards, and extramural research and development contracts
PCORI Salary Cap
$200,000
NSF Salary Cap
As a general policy, NSF limits the salary compensation requested in the proposal budget for senior personnel to no more than two months of their regular salary in any one year. This limit includes salary compensation received from all NSF-funded grants.
If anticipated, compensation in excess of two months must be disclosed in the proposal budget and well justified in the budget justification. If more than two months of salary support is approved by NSF, it must be included on the award budget.
Direct Costs
Costs that can be specifically attributed to a particular sponsored project, a particular university-funded research project, an instructional activity (including departmental research), any other institutional activity, or that can be directly assigned to such activities relatively easily and with a high degree of accuracy, without exceptions or "unless" statements.
Effort - Definition
The time spent on an activity by an individual, expressed as a percentage of the individual's total institutional activities, such as work on sponsored programs, teaching and instruction, service, or other duties.
Effort cannot exceed one hundred percent (100%).
100% Effort
A 40 hour/week IS NOT the definition of 100% effort from which percentage of research effort is certified.
Under federal regulations on effort reporting, 100% effort is an employee’s total hours actually spent on work within the scope of his or her employment regardless of how many or how few hours an employee works and regardless of the percent FTE listed on the appointment. Effort certification must reflect actual work performed and cannot be budget driven.
https://research.mnsu.edu/globalassets/research/rasp/forms/time-and-effort-5-points.pdf
De Minimis Effort
Infrequent, irregular activity that would normally be considered “so small” that it cannot (and should not) be accounted for.
Activities can be considered de minimis in amount when, in the aggregate, they represent less than one percent of the individual’s total effort.
Fringe Benefits - Definition
Additional compensation given to employees in addition to their salary or hourly wage
Fringe Benefit Rate - Definition
The percent of an employee’s wages relative to the fringe benefits they receive
Fringe Benefits - Federal Rates
Negotiated with the institution’s or organization’s cognizant agency, which is typically the agency that provides the most direct federal funding (often the Department of Health and Human Services for medical institutions)
Applied to salaries charged to Federal awards
Fringe Benefits - Component Examples
Health Insurance
Retirement
FICA/Medicare
Tuition Remission
Workman's Compensation
Unemployment Insurance
Childcare reimbursement
Fringe Benefits - Calculation Base
Pooled - Pooled cost of employee benefits divided by the total salaries in each employee class
Actual - An individual employee's total cost of all fringe benefits and payroll taxes divided by the annual salary
Modified Total Direct Costs (MTDC) - Inclusions
All direct salaries
Applicable fringe benefits
Materials and supplies
Services
Travel
Up to the first $25,000 of each subaward
Modified Total Direct Costs (MTDC) - Exclusions
Equipment
Capital expenditures
Charges for patient care
Rental costs
Tuition
Scholarships and fellowships
Participant support costs
Portion of each subaward in excess of $25,000
Travel Costs
Must benefit the proposed project and usually include travel associated with fieldwork and attendance at scientific meetings for the purpose of presenting project findings and/or results.
Domestic Travel
Unless otherwise stated by the sponsor, domestic travel is considered to be travel among any of the 50 United States, its possessions and territories, and Canada.
*The NSF includes Canada as a foreign country and therefore considers foreign travel
Foreign Travel
Travel outside of the 50 United States, its possessions and territories, and Canada.
*The NSF includes Canada as a foreign country and therefore considers foreign travel
Equipment - Definition
Tangible personal property (including information technology systems) having a useful life of more than one year and a per-unit acquisition cost of $5,000 and greater
Equipment - Criteria
Must be project specific
Cost of $5,000 or more per unit
Freestanding, complete in itself
Does not become a component part of another piece of equipment when put into use
Life expectancy of >1 year
Non-expendable, tangible
Fabricated Equipment - Definition
Equipment that is built or assembled in its original form from individual parts by sponsored project personnel, an internal shop, or an external shop
Fabricated Equipment - Criteria & Features
Aggregate cost of $5,000 or more
Service life of >1 year
Freestanding, complete in itself
Does not become a component part of another piece of equipment when put into use
Individual component costs are budgeted as equipment and excluded from the modified total direct costs (MTDC)
Does not include routine maintenance or repair costs
Other Direct Costs - Definition
Direct costs that are not appropriate to include in any of the defined categories listed in the sponsor’s budget form
Other Direct Costs - Examples
Advertising
Animal per diem costs
Books
Car or property rental
Computer services
Consultants
Equipment maintenance or warranties
Freight
Insurance
Memberships and subscriptions
Office Supplies
Patient care costs
Postage
Printing and publication
Subject participation fees or honoraria
Subawards
Telephone and other communication expenses
Participant Support Costs - NSF
Direct costs for items such as stipends or subsistence allowances, travel allowances and registration fees paid to or on behalf of participants or trainees (but not employees) in connection with meetings, conferences, symposia or training projects.
Subaward - Definition
A portion of an organization’s sponsored project is passed through to another entity in order to complete a portion of the sponsored project's scope of work.
It does not include payments to a contractor or payments to an individual that is a beneficiary of a program.
Subawards differ from procurement contracts used to acquire goods or services from vendors.
Subaward - SOW
A subaward must include a clearly defined, intellectually significant SOW to be performed by the subrecipient's personnel, using its own facilities and resources.
The subrecipient takes full responsibility for adhering to the terms and conditions of the subaward including those flowed down from the sponsor, and assumes creative and intellectual responsibility and leadership as well as financial management for performing and fulfilling the subrecipient's SOW within the subrecipient's approved budget.
Subaward - Characteristics
The subrecipient:
has responsibility for programmatic decision making
contributes to the scholarly/scientific conduct of the project as described in the statement of work for the prime award
uses the funding to carry out a program for a public purpose specified in the authorizing statute, as compared to providing goods or services for the benefit of the pass-through entity
requires considerable discretionary judgment and the unique expertise of the subrecipient in the performance of the work
investigator would be considered as a co-author of publications resulting from the work performed under the prime award
performs work that involves human subjects or animal studies
Consultants or Independent Contractors - Definition
Individuals who will provide advice to the project or perform specific, defined activities that do not involve design or execution of the project
Consulting services and activities support the project but do not directly move the project toward its goals.
Consultants - Characteristics
Neither a vendor nor a subawardee
Usually an individual
Provides own tools to complete task
Specialized expertise
Cost should be comparable to prior years
On NIH applications, unpaid consultants may be listed as “Other Significant Contributors”
Not subject to compliance requirements
PI is typically responsible for monitoring the progress of the consultant
