We got one of these as well. I assume the issue is not that the FTE
reported is outside parameters, or that the amount expended exceeds the
award, but that you can't have created or retained an FTE if you did not
spend anything. Change the FTE to -0- and you should be OK.

Yes, the wording of the error messages is clunky, and I really hate
getting a message that says a date I reported doesn't agree with the
date they have (if they have the date, why do I need to report it?!?),
but on the whole the reporting went pretty smoothly, and I appreciate
the effort to do some edits on our data up front. None of us wants to
look foolish when these data go public.

Kris Wolff wrote:
>
> Dear All,
>
> I just got this email. The first error, Number of Jobs, was reported
> as 1 – how can that fall outside their parameters? For the second one,
> the Total Federal Amount of ARRA Expenditure field was reported as
> $0.00 - so obviously it does not exceed the Award Amount field. I used
> version 1.3 of the reporting template from FederalReporting.gov. Has
> anyone else gotten error messages like this and if so, what did you
> have to do to correct them? I will be in DC for the NCURA conference
> all next week and they want this fixed by the 20^th , so I’m a bit
> concerned.
>
> Thanks!
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:* NIH ARRA Reporting (NIH/OD)
> [mailto:xxxxxx@mail.nih.gov]
> *Sent:* Friday, October 16, 2009 4:58 PM
> *To:* 'xxxxxx@fordham.edu'
> *Subject:* ARRA Section 1512 Reporting Errors on NIH awards
>
> Dear /FORDHAM// UNIVERSITY/,
>
> Thank you for submitting a quarterly report for the American Recovery
> and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) award number 3R15GM081862-01A1S1
> from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). HHS agencies are
> reviewing several key data fields to determine “significant errors”.
> These include Award Date, Amount of the Award, Number of Jobs, and
> Total Federal Amount of ARRA Expenditures. While conducting an early
> review of the data submitted to-date, we have detected the following
> error(s) in these data fields:
>
> 1) A Significant Error was identified in the ‘Number of Jobs’ field of
> your quarterly report. The listed number of jobs falls outside the
> available parameters. Please check to ensure that the estimate of jobs
> created was calculated according to the guidance provided by the
> Council of Economic Advisers in the Executive Office of the President
> of the United States
> (http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/cea/Estimate-of-Job-Creation/).
>
>
> 2) A Significant Error was identified in the ‘Total Federal Amount of
> ARRA Expenditure’ field of your quarterly report. The amount listed in
> this field exceeds the amount listed in your ‘Award Amount’ field. To
> ensure accurate reporting, please go to www.FederalReporting.gov
> <http://www.FederalReporting.gov> and correct this information by the
> 20th of this month.
>
> To assist ARRA recipients with their reporting, NIH has prepared a
> Recipient Readiness Tool
> <http://projectreporter.nih.gov/files/ARRA-projects.xls> which
> contains the ARRA Section 1512 recipient reporting data for each of
> the ARRA awards issued by HHS agencies. Much of the data needed for
> recipient reporting is also provided in the notice of grant award.
>
> If you need further assistance with identifying and correcting the
> error(s), please email xxxxxx@mail.nih.gov. You have until
> October 20, 2009 to make corrections to the reports that have been
> posted to FederalReporting.Gov. On October 22, the site will be frozen
> and it will be necessary for a NIH representative to manually unlock
> your report(s) before any changes can be made. On October 30, 2009,
> NIH is required to report missing ARRA Section 1512 reports and
> significant reporting errors to the Recovery Accountability
> Transparency Board.
>
> For more information on NIH's ARRA programs, there are many FAQ's and
> Answers posted on the NIH Recovery Act web site. You can also contact
> NIH directly with your questions at xxxxxx@mail.nih.gov.
>
> Thank you very much,
>
> NIH Office of Extramural Research
>
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