Carol:

It is possible to directly charge costs for research
administration to projects.  I, as do several others in my
unit, routinely charge a portion of my salary to projects.
How do we accomplish this in a manner which is acceptable to
our audit agency and the sponsor?  1) The time on the
proposal budget is calculated and justified in the same
manner as any other participant.  2)The time commitment
accurately reflects the proposed contribution to the project.
3) The duties are clearly identified/defined.  4) The time
spent on the project is documented via timesheets (usually
hours or %effort, depending on the job classification) and
accurately reflects actual costs (time spent). 5) The method
of charging (direct or indirect) for any individual is
consistent through the life of the project.  6) Guidelines
have been established and are consistently applied in
determining which projects (and duties/tasks) will be direct
charged and which will not be.  The nature of the sponsoring
agency (fed, state, for-profit, etc.) has no bearing on the
determination.  And, 7) we are careful to exclude any costs
charged directly to projects from the indirect cost base (no
double-dipping).

This last sounds obvious but, depending on your accounting
and payroll systems/practices, may not be.  We find it
simplest to actually charge directly to the project account rather
than charge to an administrative account and then journal voucher the
charges to the appropriate project account - that means timesheets with
multiple account numbers to which our time is charged.  (At the present
time I have five different account numbers on my timesheet - 2
administrative accounts,  2 restricted (project) accounts and 1
"matching" account for one of the restricted  accounts.)  When changes
are necessary, they are made, depending upon the time lapsed between the
initial charge and corrections, by either amended timesheets or a
unique document which is used solely for moving payroll charges.

In most cases, the salary savings you would realize aren't
worth the resources necessary to track the actual costs. We
usually find that it takes at least a month of commitment in
a mid-level position, more in classified positions, to make
the recovery "worth the trouble," i.e., cost effective. It
takes a pretty large proposal to handle that kind of budget
demand and still remain competitive.  And, you should be
careful that you don't make any changes in your accounting
practices which affect the manner in which you accumulate
administrative costs for the indirect cost base.

Obviously, this is a simplified picture of the process of
direct charging administrative costs to projects.  I'll be
happy to answer specific questions about our procedures if
you'd like to contact me directly.

A suggestion for you - have you considered establishing and
using recharge/service centers for some project services?  We
also use these to direct charge some functions which are
included by other institutions as indirect costs.  Again, it
may be a matter of being cost-effective even if an allowable
practice.  The application must be consistent. And, there are
a whole set of "rules" governing these center practices also.

Hope this helps you.

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Rosemary Ruff
Proposal Officer
SFOS/University of Alaska Fairbanks
Fairbanks, AK 99775-7220

VOICE:  (907)474-6735
FAX:    (907)474-7204