Agree wholeheartedly with Spanky.  My experience in three different VA
state universities is that the "buyout" of time relieves the chairman's
budget of X $ for getting the department's work, other than sponsored
programs, done.  The chair can combine all those pieces of buyout to have
funds for alternate staff to get the department's work done.  (You can see
that a large, research-active department has a lot more flexibility than a
department with one researcher 25% on a grant!)  If the chairman can get
alternate staff for less $ than the total of buyouts, she can get some
additional staffing for her department -- very often more GRA/GTA for a
semester or two because of how long it can take to hire regular staff.  Of
course the chairman has the problem of future projections of who will be
bought out for how much in which semesters, but in an active department she
will pretty well know who will reliably buyout how much time.  None of the
places I've been had written policies; it all derived from the budgeting
process.

"Salary savings" has a specific budgetary meaning for us which is
different.  Roughly it translates into "Don't hire the replacement for a
few weeks or months -- and we don't care how much institutional memory we
loose or how much new-hire training costs when the previous incumbent is gone."

Chuck

At 02:33 PM 2/22/2002 -0600, you wrote:
>I've been in 3-4 different places and each has handled this issue
>differently.  if you are talking about the differential between what
>is charged for a researcher's time on a project and the replacement
>cost for a lecturer to pick up classes from which the researcher has
>been bought out, that's often called salary savings.  That money
>usually ends up in the hands of the person who controls the budget
>for that particular PI's payroll, be that a Dean, dept chair, or even
>the budget officer for the entire university.  And generally there
>are plans for using salary savings that have been made at a pretty
>high level.  I make a run on those funds every time I can, though,
>trying to make a deal for the PI before the award comes in.  In the
>cases where I've had some luck, we've had no restrictions on how the
>money is used.  Many places these funds never leave the Provost's
>office and you are SOL in trying to get your hands on any of them.
>
>Spanky
>
>>We are looking at policies on the use of different categories of
>>research-related funds, including from PI released time and would
>>appreciate input from folks on the list. You can respond directly to me if
>>you do not want your response to go to everybody on the list. Here is my
>>request:
>>
>>Buy-out funds recovered from the released time of PIs are traditionally
>>used to pay for replacement personnel covering the responsibilities which
>>PIs would have covered if they were not working on grant projects. Does
>>your institution follow this practice in all situations? Do you place any
>>restrictions on the use of such funds for any other related activities?
>>Please send me any written policies you may have regarding this issue.
>>
>>Thanks.
>>====================================
>>Imeh D. Ebong, Ph. D.
>>Director, Division of Research Development
>>MS 0960 RP
>>360 Huntington Avenue
>>Northeastern University
>>Boston, MA 02115-5000
>>
>>Tel: (617) 373-8770
>>Fax: (617) 373-8866
>>====================================
>>
>>
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>
>--
>Mike McCallister, Ph. D.
>  Director, Research and Sponsored Programs
>University of Arkansas at Little Rock
>2801 South University
>Little Rock, AR 72204-1099
>(v) 501-569-8474
>(f)501-371-7614
>
>
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Herbert B. Chermside, CRA
Director, Sponsored Programs Administration
Virginia Commonwealth University
PO BOX 980568
Richmond, VA  23298-0568
Express Delivery Only:
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 Richmond, VA  23219
Voice:  804-828-6772
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