Hi,

I am a new research grants administrator at the Stellenbosch University Faculty of Health Sciences in Cape Town, South Africa. I have been monitoring the list for some time but have never come across an answer to this issue that we are struggling with at the moment.

According the NIH we are required to account for the distribution of salaries and wages within the "generally accepted practices of collges and universities". Since this Faculty has never asked for NIH funding previously and since all staff and professional personnel are government employees, the accounting system here does not know what to do since work time has never been measured. However, this is now changing as we now are subcontractors on a large NIH grant and must now allocate effort as a percentage distribution.

According to OMB circular A-21, acceptable methods for payroll distribution are either a Plan-Confirmation method or a After-the-fact Activity Record. I interpret this to mean either that we allocate people's time or salary according to the percentages in our approved NIH contracts and verify this allocation at least annually or we use weekly or monthly time sheets to document the work that people do on research projects.

I would like to know how do most universities or colleges account for professional time and what does a percent allocation mean to clinicians who often work 50 to 70 hour work weeks.  We can set a standard 40 hour work week for non-professional help but this is difficult to do for a staff who are variable in their effort.

Your policies and procedures would be most appreciated since we are a bit lost. I think that whatever this faculty does will probably be replicated at other South African universities.

W. Patrick McVay, MPH
Coordinating Consultant
Office of Research Grants Development
Division of Research Support & Development
Faculty of Health Sciences
Stellenbosch University
Tel: 27-21-938-9156
Cell: 27-21-464-8770

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