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Center
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Support:
Budget Preparation
When you receive an RFP that you are interested in applying for, contact Wayne as soon as possible via email or phone (5-4070). Let Wayne know that you intend to apply, which faculty members will be on the research team, and a rough idea of what you will be proposing for a budget. At least two to four weeks before the proposal is due, schedule a meeting with Wayne to go over your final budget. Come to the meeting prepared to discuss items such as salaries and wages; travel; other direct costs such as software, equipment, telephone services, and postage; consultants; operating supplies; and indirect costs. Allow one week to obtain all the signatures you will need. ___________________________________________________________ Unclassified
staff • When proposing new positions, use correct 9- or 12-month salary rates. Nine or 12 month salaries must be divisible by 9 or 12. If the position is greater than .5 FTE, consult the current AAUP Contract for minimum salary rates. If the position is less than .5 FTE, consult the current AFT Contract for minimum salary rates. Contact Wayne for questions about minimum salary rates, or advice on setting the rates. • Get date and percent of projected changes in salary rates. Changes are indicated in current AAUP Contract, but there is not always a current contract in place. In these cases, contact Wayne for more information. • Proposals that cross several fiscal years should have dollars built into their budgets to accommodate possible salary increases. The recommendation from ORSP is 5% unless otherwise noted by funding agency. • Course buy-outs: Faculty should discuss course buyouts with Larry Wallack prior to proposals being submitted. In general, for faculty teaching six courses a year, 12% of salary releases one course; 25% of salary releases two courses; and 40% of salary releases three courses. Classified
staff (support/clerical staff) Federal grants do not allow the PIs to request funds for general secretarial support. Classified staff are generally considered indirect costs except in the following situations: • Large, complex programs such as general clinical research centers, primate centers, program projects, environmental research centers, engineering research centers, and other grants and contracts that entail assembling and managing teams of investigators from a number of institutions. • Projects that involve extensive data accumulation, analysis and entry, surveying, tabulation, cataloging, searching literature, and report (such as epidemiological studies, clinical trials, and retrospective clinical records studies). • Projects that require making travel and meeting arrangement for large numbers of participants, such as conferences and seminars. • Projects whose principal focus is the preparation and production of manuals and large reports, books, and monographs (excluding routine progress and technical reports). • Projects that are geographically inaccessible to normal departmental administrative services, such as research vessels and other research field sites that are remote from campus. • Individual projects requiring project-specific database management, individualized graphics or manuscript preparation, human or animal protocols, and multiple project-related investigator coordination and communications. These examples are not exhaustive nor are they intended to imply that direct charging of administrative or clerical salaries is always appropriate in these situations. Graduate
Research Assistants • For salary information, ask Wayne for a current copy of the Graduate Assistant Stipends or go to the Office of Human Resources Web page. Click on "Forms," then "Letter of offer," then "Graduate Assistant," then "Fiscal year 2000 graduate assistant salary schedule." • Tuition remission: 2001-2002 tuition remission for full-time graduate assistant (9-16 hours) is $1,971 per term. There are no guidelines regarding increases in tuition remission, except that it does tend to increase each year. For budget purposes, assume a 5% increase each year. Students
on hourly student wages Other
payroll expenses (OPE) • OPE rates for classified staff is usually higher than unclassified staff, but is still dependent on type of appointment, FTE, salary rate, etc. • For students, including graduate assistants, use 8% for the year. Be sure to include tuition remission ($1,971/term) as a fringe benefit. The above OPE rates are estimates only. The University can decide to raise OPE in the future so you need to project possible OPE changes in long-term budgets. In lieu of specific information about projected increases in salaries and OPE, use a 4% increase each year. Also, you might ask the funder what they consider a reasonable inflationary increase to be. There are no guidelines, except that lower paid staff have a higher OPE rate, and higher paid staff have a lower OPE rate. Call Wayne (5-4070) at the time of proposal writing for more help. Be sure to consider if you will need to include any of the following services and whether this will involve hiring other personnel: coding, data entry (in-house or private service), database management, interviewing, library research, transcription. back
to top The guidelines below are on the high side. If you are working with a tight budget, be specific about trips and consult Wayne for more accurate figures. In
state travel Airfare Include any consultant travel that is not part of a Personal Services Contract. City pair air fare rates are not available to consultants. back
to top Note: Grants with low or no overhead must direct cost all anticipated charges. Software Peripherals Includes tapes for tape backup, special tape backup equipment Equipment Determine if funding agency will allow equipment purchases. According to the University, an item must be more than $5,000 to be considered capitalized equipment. Your funding source may use a different definition. Budget for computer and printer equipment if possible. Consider other equipment your project might need, including tape recorders, transcribers, etc. Copying/Faxing Copying internally
is charged at 3 cents per copy (this does not include binding equipment
and binding supplies). Copies are currently 6 cents each at private
providers such as Clean Copy. Call for most current pricing Postage Postage is generally considered an indirect cost. Postage can be considered a direct cost in certain instances, for example, when mailing surveys or paying for postage-paid envelopes. Contact Wayne for details. Telephone Telephone equipment such as phone and phone line in your office is considered an indirect cost. Additional telephone lines are a direct cost at approximately $25 per month. Long distance charges in direct support of a grant can be considered direct costs. Budget at least $50 per person per month for long-distance, more if there will be lots of long-distance calls, interviewing long-distance, or conference calls. Research subject fees Varies depending on type of research and who participants are. $20-$40 for an hour interview is common. Consider paying more for later waves of interview with bonuses at end for completing all parts. Other Book purchases, journal subscriptions, reprints of publications. back
to top Include % of a person or consultant time based on # of hours. This person can consult on data management and data file set-up, and well as analysis. Check with funding source for limits. Build in more days if limit is low. No limit is imposed by PSU. If consultant is part of PERS systems, other rules apply, contact Wayne for more details. ___________________________________________________________ Consider special project needs such as large volumes of envelopes for mailing, recording tapes, special brochures, etc. ___________________________________________________________ For current information on indirect costs through year 2005, go to PSU's "Policy on Indirect Costs at Portland State University." Figure indirect costs on the total direct costs of the budget, excluding tuition, equipment ($5,000+), or any sub-contracted amount beyond the first $25,000. Indirect cost rates can vary depending on the sources of the funding. All grants that contain federal flow through funding should charge full indirect costs, although certain governmental agencies have set lower indirect costs rates for certain types of activities (e.g. training). In all cases, any budget with less than the full indirect cost rate should be discussed with Wayne early in the proposal development process. Permission must be obtained throughout CUPA and ORSP for reduced indirect costs. back
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| Center for
Public Health Studies Portland State University 503.725.9095 PO Box 751 506 SW Mill, Suite 450 Portland, Oregon 97207 |