Scott you need to be careful with your definitions. If you raise the
equipment threshold to $5,000, then any 'equipment' item with an acquisition
cost of $5K or below are no longer called equipment. These items become
supplies and their expenses are part of the MTDC base, which in turn will
draw indirect cost. BUT, you must have approval from your Federal Cognizant
Agency to charge overhead on these items. REASON: your current and/or future
indirect cost negotiated rates reflect the old equipment threshold. Hence,
this is not an NSF issue, it is more a consistency issue as addressed by OMB
Circular A-21 and CASB provisions. Louis.

>I am currently working on the submission of a proposal for the NSF Research
>Equipment Grant.  The guidelines do not address indirect costs on equipment
>under $5,000 (the new base for federal property).  With the new federal
>property guidelines, our institution assesses indirect cost on equipment
>under $5,000.
>
>Does anyone know if NSF actually allows indirect cost on equipment, or do
>they specifically exclude it somewhere other than this program announcement?
>
>Scott Morris
>University of Illinois
>Department of Nuclear Engineering
>211 Nuclear Engineering Laboratory
>103 South Goodwin Avenue
>Urbana, IL  61801-2984
>
>Phone:  (217) 244-4949
>Fax:    (217) 333-2906
>e-mail: xxxxxx@uiuc.edu
>
>
------------------------------
Louis Guin, PhD, Assistant VP
Univ. of Southern California
Office of Financial Analysis
UGB Suite 107, MC-8002
Los Angeles, CA 90089-8002
(P) 213 743-2454
(F) 213 748-0871
(E) xxxxxx@usc.edu