Normally, matching / cost shared funds are to be spent during the period of
the federal award to which they apply, but with no other control on rate of
expenditure.  This can be changed by special conditions to the award or
other formal approval by sponsor.

Training grants sometimes create special situations.  I'd advise contacting
your grants specialist.  Possibly the matching can be spent in the next
period, on another trainee.  Or maybe extend the grant, and fund one of the
present trainees this period and fill the last funded traineeship from the
grant.

The amount you must match depends on the language of the award, or of your
proposal which is included in the award by reference.  As you described it,
your match is to be 25% of the amount of the sponsor award; if that is the
case, the total matching must be no less than 25% of the amount of the
sponsor funds expended (but of course nothing prevents over-matching).

Chuck

At 03:35 PM 3/26/01 -0500, you wrote:
>If anyone could point me to some guidance (federal regs, GASB, or other)
>on the rate at which matching funds should be expended vis-a-vis grant
>funds, I would appreciate it.
>
>The context is this: we received a federal award that requires a 25%
>match. Specifically, the grant funded 4 fellowships and we in turn
>funded 1 fellowship.  We transferred the necessary institutional funds
>into a matching account, but the PI was not able to fill all five
>fellowships.  Since we won't be able to use all the funds, should we
>spend all the grant funds first, spend all the matching funds first,
>spend them both at a rate of 4:1, or is there some other solution?
>
>On a somewhat related note, what if there are unexpended grant funds and
>matching funds at the end of the grant period?  Are we required to
>transfer as many charges to the matching account to meet our obligation
>before determining how much should be returned to the sponsor?
>
>Thanks for your advice.
>
>Craig
>
>--
>Craig Reynolds / Office of Research and Sponsored Programs /
>Foust 251 / Central Michigan Univ. / Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 /
>T: (517) 774-3859 / F: (517) 774-3438 / E: xxxxxx@cmich.edu
>
>
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Herbert B. Chermside, CRA
Director, Sponsored Programs Administration
Virginia Commonwealth University
PO BOX 980568
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