Recently, the Director of our animal care facilities called me to say they
were going to have to increase their rates drastically. Since they did not
want to put a burden on currently funded awards, they are proposing 2
different rates. The old rate for currently funded awards and the new rate
for all new proposals which are funded. Of course my first thought was this
would be contrary to A-21, but I still thought I should try talking to the
NIH policy office.

The person I spoke to there said that in the past when there had been
increases in animal care rates at institutions that the institution would
request additional funds to cover the rate increases. The NIH institute
would then look over the request and the amount of any carryovers and make
a decision as to providing additional funding.  The individual at the NIH
policy office then went on to comment that this was an A-21 issue and I
should call our cognizant federal auditor.

So I then called our cognizant federal auditor. Our cognizant federal
auditor stated this was a direct cost issue and should be taken up with the
awarding agency as to there funding addition costs.  The auditor went on to
say that charging the two different rates was not in violation of
A-21because we were adjusting the rates for actual costs.

I would like to here comments from other schools as to your thoughts on the
information relayed to me, the success others may have had on receiving
additional funds to cover rate increase, or if any schools had in fact
charged two different rates under similar circumstances. I should further
point out that we are holding back on the submission of our disclosure
statement until we resolve this issue.

Peter A. Tiskus
Director Sponsored Projects
LSU Medical Center, New Orleans
504-568-3674
xxxxxx@lsumc.edu

======================================================================
 Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including
 subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available
 via our web site at http://www.hrinet.org (click on "Listserv Lists")
======================================================================