|
Budgeting Guidelines
The Office of Sponsored Programs in collaboration
with the Office of Grants & Contracts Accounting, is pleased to
announce the TC Grant Budgeting Template. (Excel)
The template was
created in response to the dramatic increase in application volume we experienced
in 2003 (a 25% increase in number of applications; the dollar value of
total requests for funding more than doubled). During this period, it
became clear that errors in budgeting and delays in internal review of
proposal budgets stemmed from two sources: 1) lack of standardization of
basic calculations and/or errors in spreadsheet formulas and 2) errors
occurring while transfering figures from a working spreadsheet to the
required sponsor budget forms. The TC Template was designed to eliminate errors
from both these sources, and provides numerous other benefits as well:
- facilitates submissions to
multiple sponsors
- provides all information
needed to complete all administrative sections of major grant
proposals in addition to the budget
- provides direct links to
sponsor forms
- prompts users with
reminders of sponsor budget requirements to avoid going over budget
limits and other errors that can jeopardize funding
- Completely self-contained
with instructions and color coded for ease of use.
The budget template was
designed to accommodate all types of grant budgets. It assumes no prior
knowledge of grant budgeting, or of TC salary formulas, indirect cost and
fringe benefit rates, or even Excel formulas. All OSP's expertise in these
areas is "built in" to the template, which we hope will make
filling out application forms a task most administrators and office
assistants can perform. To that end, OSP has phased in the template. We can
demonstrate the template at departmental and other meetings upon request.
The new budget template
standardizes faculty salary calculations as a percentage of annualized base
salary (base x 153%), which about half our outgoing applications have been
using for quite some time. This facilitates budgeting salary as a
percentage of annual effort (which most sponsors now require) as well as
annual time and effort reporting. It also maximizes potential salary from
grants for all faculty. Other formulas can be used with prior OSP approval
for purposes of meeting a budget ceiling or cost sharing. Below is some
guidance for estimating costs of other frequently requested budget items:
 Printer Friendly Version
Each
item below corresponds to a common line item in most grant budgets
1.
Faculty Salaries
In order to calculate
faculty salaries for a grant budget, it is important to know that faculty
at TC work on 9 month contracts corresponding to the Academic Year. Faculty
compensation for this nine month period is known as an Institutional Base
Salary (IBS). Federal Cost Accounting standards require that we charge
grants for faculty salary according to formulas based on IBS, so you will
need the current IBS of each faculty member named on a grant in order to
calculate the budget. OSP has a complete list for all faculty and can
provide you with that information if you do not have it.
The 9 month contract
leaves the three summer months available for faculty to devote 100% of their
effort on grant related work. Therefore, faculty will most frequently
request Summer Salary from a grant. The three months of the summer are
equal to 1/3 of the academic year, so summer salary is capped at 33% of
IBS. Each month of summer salary is equal to 11% of IBS.
Faculty may also do
grant related work during the year. A faculty member may elect to "buy
out" of teaching (more formally known as "course release")
to work on a sponsored project, at a rate equal to 20% of IBS for each
course released. If a faculty member performs work on a sponsored project
in addition to his or her normal duties at the college during the academic
year, he or she may draw overage compensation. TC policy caps overage at
20% of IBS.
The maximum annual
compensation a faculty member may draw from TC and external sources
combined is thus 153% of IBS. Most sponsors request that effort on a
project be requested as a percentage of each individual’s annual (12
month) effort. By taking the Institutional Base Salary and multiplying it
by 153% we arrive at a figure known as the Annualized Base Salary (ABS).
Most grants budget faculty effort as a percentage of ABS.
Here's an example to
illustrate:
Prof. X has an
institutional base salary of $100,000 per year, or an annualized base salary
of $153,000. Prof. X will devote 20% of her total effort to a project each
year. During year one of the project, the budget request $30,600 rather
than $20,000 because we base the request on the annualized salary.
NOTE: The National
Institutes of Health (NIH) sets an annual salary cap. Effective January 1,
2008, total compensation for individuals receiving funds from NIH and
institutional sources may not exceed $191,300. If a faculty member's
annualized base salary exceeds this amount, the lower amount must be used.
Grant budgets for the
National Science Foundation (NSF) require that salary requests be expressed
as months. No more than 2 months salary may be requested for any one
individual on one grant.
Other
Professional Salaries
Other
professional staff at TC work on 12 month contracts and are not (in
general) entitled to overage payments, so their salaries are far simpler to
calculate. For professional staff currently on the TC Payroll, request
salary for such individuals as a flat percentage of their current
Institutional Base salary.
It's
frequently the case that staff positions named in a grant proposal budget
will only be created if the grant is funded, in which case we have to
estimate what each position's Institutional Base Salary will be. Below is a
list of position categories frequently included in grant budgets with a
salary range for each.
Senior
Research Scientist/PostDoc: $40,000-60,000
Project
Director/Business Manager: $35,000-55,000
Project
Coordinator/Data Collection Coordinator/Statistical coordinator (doctoral
level): $30,000-50,000
Project
Tech Support, Network Engineer, Web/Multimedia Designer: $35,000-60,000
Secretary/Clerical
Staff : $25,000-30,000
Graduate
Research Assistants
As of 1/1/08, the college has codified specific types of support for graduate students:
- Doctoral Research Fellowships: Includes a stipend of between $20-24K per year, with 12 credits tuition charged to the grant, matched by the college
- Graduate Assistant: Works no more than 20 hours a week and earns no less than $4000 per semester up to $19,999 per academic year.. Eligible for 6 points tuition waiver.
Part time hourly and part time professional lines may also be used to support graduate students.
Fringe
Benefits
All full
time faculty and professional staff positions are charged fringe benefits
at 36.4% of their total compensation. Part time graduate student employees
are charged 8.6%.
Click
on the links below to find out more about OTPS expenses, indirect costs and
other budgeting issues
|
