Thank you to the schools who responded to my questions about the
involvement of a sponsored programs office in the review and/or approval of
personnel action forms for advertising and hiring employees.

The responses are very interesting.  The reasons for review are mostly what
I expected.  SP offices review and/or approve to determine:

*if the charge and/or position classification is appropriate as a direct
cost on the project

*if the funds necessary to cover the costs are available in the project

*if hiring practices of the institution have been followed for advertising
and/or specifically naming someone in a project budget

*if the funds are available to cover the salary increase when an employee
is reclassified through the addition of tasks or promotion

*if fringe benefits have been accounted for when an employee is temporary
and/or termination benefits may be an issue

While the reasons all seem logical and review at some level is necessary, I
am curious to hear now from those sponsored programs offices who do not
review the personnel action forms and do not get involved in the hiring
process for people paid on sponsored projects.  What, if any, controls do
you have in place to ensure that all the things listed above are covered?

One school indicated that they used to be more heavily involved in the
approval of paperwork for this task, but are now decentralizing some of the
responsibility.

As I reviewed the responses from other schools and compared it to our
structure, I thought about how little information our office has about the
scope of the project and the actual direction the work will take.  This
puts us at a disadvantage when determining if funds will be sufficient to
cover the new hire.  One school I worked at encumbered salary dollars so
you could kind of tell what was available but you can never read the
faculty member's mind.

Another thought I had was that our AA/EEOC office is better equipped to
understand compliance with the institution's hiring practices and the state
and federal laws.

This brought me to a final thought about compliance with A-21.  We feel
like maybe we should be involved a tiny bit at the advertisement stage.  We
saw an ad a while back that was clearly clerical in nature but stated it
was mostly supported by external projects.  I would rather not have had
that happen.  I think CAS is beginning to sink in and this is unlikely to
happen again but who should review to be sure?  Our office reviews and
approves (or not) proposed admin/clerical costs on a justification form at
the proposal stage and sometimes at the award stage but we don't actually
see the hiring forms or the personnel charge forms.

One thing that was clear from the respondents was that it is easier to
address the issue BEFORE an expenditure is actually made to a project.

I would appreciate any dialog on the topic for which you have the time to
write.  I know you are all busy this time of year.  Thanks again to those
who responded earlier.  It helps for my meeting this afternoon with the
Provost.