I use to work at a small SUNY institution which did not do a lot of Sponsored
Programs activity.  I was a 1-man shop, helping faculty/staff in everything
from finding funding sources, to helping with the writing, to post-award
administration.

If your institution is at all "informal" or inexperienced about things, there
is a very definate advantage to being in the loop on hiring, right from the
get-go.  When the grants were written, input was sought and received on
appropriate salary levels.  Somewhere in the hring process, it would "often"
occur that someone decides to play some game or other (perhaps invovling
expanded duties or higher qualifications) with the position to be filled.
This resulted in sitiuations were a person was hired -- perhaps was even
working -- at a salary higher than budgeted in the grant.  Large grants
usually have enough flexibility to deal with this via a budget amendment --
small gants often don't.  So somebody had to "eat" the difference.  My being
invovled allowed me to caution a VP or PD there wasn't enough money from the
grant for the salary proposed -- and if they go through with it, they'd have
to find the money somewhere.  This avoided, um, embarrassment, by all parties
later on.

Martha Taylor wrote:

> Does anyone out there in a central sponsored programs office get involved
> in approvals of paperwork to advertise and or hire personnel?  If so, why?
> So far, all I can think of is allowability as a direct cost on a sponsored
> project.  Anything else?