Good afternoon everyone,
We’re currently trying to cipher form the UG whether federal grants can pay for leave. Our institution pays for short-term disability insurance, which covers 60% of your salary during maternity leave. From what I know, we do not directly
cover any form of FMLA, so leave is unpaid unless covered indirectly through disability insurance.
The UG states:
(b) Leave. The cost of fringe benefits in the form of regular compensation paid to employees during periods of authorized absences from the job, such as for annual leave, family-related leave, sick leave, holidays, court leave, military leave, administrative
leave, and other similar benefits, are allowable if all of the following criteria are met:
(1) They are provided under established written leave policies;
(2) The costs are equitably allocated to all related activities, including Federal awards; and,
(3) The accounting basis (cash or accrual) selected for costing each type of leave is consistently followed by the non-Federal entity or specified
grouping of employees.
To me, this indicates that the grant can cover leave if it is already paid for under our policies. Given that we don’t pay for it, per our policies, I believe this means the grant cannot pay for leave. This would result in the following
scenarios:
·
If a personnel who is 100% on a grant were to be out for 1 month on maternity leave, we cannot charge their salary for that month to the grant; instead, the person would only get 60% of their salary from the short-term insurance
as laid out in policy.
·
If a personnel who is 100% on a grant were to be out for 1 month to care for a family member, I believe we cannot charge their salary for that month to the grant; instead, the person would get 0% salary while on leave as stated
in our policy.
To me, in neither of these cases would we be allowed to charge the grant at all for the 1 month that the person is not working. Am I on the right track here? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.
Mindy R. Waite, PhD
Manager of Research Grants and Projects
Aurora Research Institute - Sponsored Programs Office
Aurora Research Institute™
| Aurora Sinai Medical Center
960 N. 12th Street, Suite 4120
| Milwaukee, WI 53233
T (414) 219-7803 | F (414) 219-5381 |
xxxxxx@aurora.org
www.aurora.org/research