One could argue that not knowing the salaries of all the people on one's grant
means you don't know the direct costs of your research.  That seems like an
irresponsible way to use the public's money.  I side with the program officer.

Charlie

Quoting "Farnsworth, Franci" <xxxxxx@MIDDLEBURY.EDU>:

> Hello,
> The FastLane Helpdesk wasn't much help and the program officer was cynical,
> so I'm turning to the best resource I know:
>
> Per the GPG, NSF allows institutions to omit salary detail on NSF budgets
> (instead submitting this detail in the "Single Copy Documents" section).
> We have a proposal going in with 3 co-PI's who do not want to be privy to
> each other's salary information.     They would like to have the NSF budget
> show only the aggregate salaries for all three of them and provide the
> necessary detail in a separate document for the program officer and NSF
> files.     And that seems to be allowed under the GPG.  The Budget
> Justification would provide detail about their individual efforts, but no
> salary info.
>
> However, I can't figure out how to over ride the way the FastLane budget is
> supposed to work.   The FastLane Helpdesk first said to call the program
> officer, but when pressed told me to upload the budget as a Single Copy
> Document and to manually enter the total on the Cover Page (which I'm not
> sure I can do).   That doesn't satisfy the need to have the rest of the
> budget loaded into FastLane.  Presumably reviewers will want to see the full
> NSF budget.
>
> A program officer said to call FastLane!    And then he said to enter the
> information into the FastLane budget as "three childish PI's" but more
> importantly, he said that he had never seen a budget (in 4 years at NSF) that
> showed aggregate salaries only.      In talking with him, it seems like we
> could list the 3 PI's on the budget with no person months or salary request
> and create another non-co-PI "senior personnel" line labelled Aggregate
> Salaries (although we probably would need a Current & Pending form for that
> "person" as well!).
>
> If you have ever done this, please reply to me directly with advice.
> Based on the attitude of the program officer, I will suggest to these faculty
> members that they should "grow up" (his words) and either avoid looking at
> the NSF budget forms or live with the knowledge of each other's salarie.
> But is there a "proper: way to have the NSF budget form show only the
> aggregate senior personnel salaries?  Is it adviseable?
>
> Thanks, as always.
>
> Franci Farnsworth
> Email:  xxxxxx@middlebury.edu
>
> Frances Vinal Farnsworth
> Coordinator of Sponsored Research
> Library Room 223
> Middlebury College
> Middlebury, VT 05753
>
> Tel:  802-443-5889
> Fax:  802-443-2081
>
> Web:  http://www.middlebury.edu/offices/grants/
>
>
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