Re: NIH stipend schedule Herbert B. Chermside 10 Mar 2003 17:15 EST

Hey, Folks -- the NIH schedule is for FELLOWSHIP STIPENDS for people in a
trainee  capacity.  This is NOT salary.  Do not mix the two!!!!

You may, or may not, want parity between the two.  Traineeship stipends are
taxed differently -- they are income, but not "wage income" -- no social
security, and tuition paid can be deducted -- and health insurance is
usually part of the grant.
.
Traineeships are competed for and represent (presumably) the cream of the crop.

Post-doc employees WORK for their funds.  They may or may not get employee
benefits, depending on your institutional system.  They may even get
tuition benefits as employees. If you want parity for post-doc workers,
consider the entire compensation package, rather than setting "
pay scale" equal to "stipend scale".

Maybe your institution funds post-doctoral TRAINEESHIPS from other shouces
than NIH (or other federal) traineeship grants.  Now those people are more
likely to deserve parity.

There is nothing wrong with parity, but if you do consider the fellow and
the worker the same, it will come back to bite you!

Chuck

At 12:08 PM 3/10/2003 -0800, you wrote:
>Hello all-
>I've been asked by the budget makers whether we are required to pay our
>postdocs (paid from either grants or institution funds) according to the NIH
>stipend schedule
>http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-03-033.html.
>
> From what I can tell, the stipend schedule is created as a guideline for the
>NIH training grants, and is not a required pay scale for all postdocs.  The
>only salary requirement is that we charge salaries in a consistent manner
>(not charge more for grant personnel than we would for institutional
>personnel).
>
>Is this correct?  Does anyone else pay institutionally supported postdocs
>according to the NIH stipend scale?  The FY03 increase is going to throw our
>budget out of whack, and we're trying to research all options.
>
>Thanks for your help,
>-Amy
>
>
>Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what
>no one else has thought.
>-Albert von Nagyrapolt
>
>Amy Hibbard
>Grants Administrator
>Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences
>535 Watson Drive, Claremont, CA 91711
>T: (909) 607-9313 / 607-7855
>F: (909) 607-8086
>xxxxxx@kgi.edu
>www.kgi.edu
>
>
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Herbert B. Chermside, CRA
Director, Sponsored Programs Administration
Virginia Commonwealth University
PO BOX 980568
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