Julia,
This is exactly the Catch 22 of the modular grant application.  You have to
know the budget to calculate the indirect costs, but NIH doesn't want to
know, and if NIH doesn't want to know there may be resistance from your
investigators when you ask them to supply a detailed budget.  Yes, you do
indeed have to make the calculation the same as you would a "regular"
budget, subtracting equipment, patient care costs, etc., according to your
indirect cost agreement.  (N.B. - NIH doesn't want to know not because they
don't want you to figure the budget, but because they don't want the peer
review committee to concentrate on the budget at the expense of the
science; at least this is how it was explained to me by an NIH rep.)

We have solved this problem (so far) by asking our investigators to
continue to supply us with a budget.  We have posted a "modular grant
budget worksheet" on our web page which asks for the following for each
year of the proposed budget:
dates of the proposed study
each person to be paid from the grant and % effort (we figure out the
salary from this);
a total for each NIH budget line (consultants, supplies, equipment, etc.)
We have a button on the bottom of the page that will automatically e-mail
the budget to us.
If the investigator prefers to give us hard copy, we ask them to fill out
the NIH budget sheets (forms DD and EE of the 398 kit).
Not only do we need to know the budget to figure the indirect costs, we
also have to make sure that the investigator is asking for enough money to
cover all the salaries and other expenses -- a guesstimate on his/her part
is not good enough for us.  We also have to be able to set up the budget,
once awarded, in our accounting system, which requires a line item breakdown.
We haven't had much trouble with our faculty about this.

Hope this helps.
Joni.

At 04:04 PM 1/23/01 -0500, you wrote:
>I would like to know how some of you calculate your Indirect Cost Rate on
>NIH modular grants.  Basically I'm getting some conflicting information.
>Since the budgets are simplied to increments of $25,000, I believe that you
>would use your negotiated IDC rate on the Total Direct Costs [i.e requesting
>$50,000 Direct Costs X .40 IDC rate = $70,000 Total Request], then after
>award, the IDC would be adjusted as needed per the detailed budget.  [We
>normally calculate our IDC based on Total Modified Direct Costs.]
>However some say that I need to subtract the equipment and contractual
>amount before calculating on the grant.  To me, this is defeating the
>purpose of the modular budget.
>
>I realize this is simple, but any feedback for a rookie is appreciated.
>Thanks.
>
>
>Julia G. Borchers
>Grants & Contract Specialist
>Marshall University Research Corporation
>
>
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Jon Hart, Director, Sponsored Programs Administration
The Rockefeller University
1230 York Ave.-Box 82, NY, NY 10021-6399
tel:  (212) 327-8054; fax:  (212) 327-8400

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