I can appreciate the various perspectives and the proper thought for and against the expenditure, and asking for agency input before posting against the award account, but I can still see the headline…

Babysitters Hired with Federal Research Funds

All the best,

Jonathan A. (Jay) Samelak, MPA

Grant & Contract Specialist

Bowling Green State University

Office of Sponsored Programs & Research (OSPR)

106 University Hall

Bowling Green, OH 43403

PH: 419.372.2481

Fax: 419.372.0304

xxxxxx@bgsu.edu

I had an interesting question posed and wanted to see if anyone would like to provide feedback.  We have a faculty member who is managing a URM (Undergraduate Research and Mentoring) grant through the National Science Foundation.

As part of this grant, she wrote in that the 2^nd year student researchers would participate in a symposium to present their research  and that a reception would follow for friends, families, and mentors.   The symposium was recently held and she decided to hire 2 baby-sitters to watch the young children of those attending this event and reception.  She would like to charge this to the grant.  Do you think this would be an allowable expense?  She said that this helped to ensure that family members with young children could attend as presented in the grant. (in total, she would like to pay each sitter $50 each)

Thanks for your thoughts…

====================================================================== Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available via our web site at http://www.healthresearch.org (click on the "LISTSERV" link in the upper right corner)

A link directly to helpful tips: http://tinyurl.com/resadm-l-help ======================================================================