Christine McDowell replied to Barbara Grey's question on accounts for
mulit-year projects:

> In our operations we take a look at when financial reports are due. If
> we have a three year project with only one final report due at the end
> we will set up one account code.

Here's a twist.  From what I understand from our post-award people, the
U.S. Department of ED generally requires one financial report for the
entire PROJECT period (say three years).  However, from working at ED I
know that when I worked there our section--which doesn't mean other section
did it differently!--informed PIs that carry over for the programs
I worked on was very rare, and that money from a one year BUDGET period
could only be spent during that BUDGET period.  In other words, funds from
year 1 should not be mixing up with year 2, and year 2 funds should not be
mixing up with year 3.

Thus it seems that the financial reporting is not in sync with how the
grants should be managed.  My question then is: how do you handle ED
grants?  Are you scrupulous about keeping the budget periods distinct or
do you allow funds to slush from year to year because of the reporting
requirements?

Because of the somewhat sensitive nature of this question, please respond
privately (unless you wish to post to the list) and I will summarize
responses.  Thanks!

Mike

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 Michael Ludwick                                    / \
 Associate Director of Sponsored Programs ___  __   |o|   __  ___
 Grants and Research Administration    ___| |__||___| |___||__| |___
 College of William and Mary          /                             \
 P.O. Box 8795                       /   # # # # #  /o\  # # # # #   \
 Williamsburg, VA  23187-8795        |   # # # # # / # \ # # # # #   |
 email: xxxxxx@grants.wm.edu           |   # # # # # |===| # # # # #   |
 phone: 804/221-3485                 |             | H |             |
 fax:   804/221-4910                 |_____________=====_____________|
 website: http://www.wm.edu/AI/Grants

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