For those of you who are NIH-Centric, here is what the NIH Grants Policy
Statement has to say about dues and memberships:

"Dues or Membership Fees: Allowable as an F&A cost for organizational
membership in business, professional, or technical organizations or
societies.

Payment of dues or membership fees for an individual's membership in a
professional or technical organization is allowable as a fringe benefit or
an employee development cost, if paid according to an established
institutional policy consistently applied regardless of the source of
funds."

My interpretation of this policy is that if an employee's dues and
memberships are consistently paid as a fringe benefit, regardless of whether
they are paid from grant funds, then they can be included as a fringe
benefit.  This would have to be an institutional policy... and I would take
that to mean a published institutional policy.

Otherwise, they cannot be paid as a direct cost.  They can be paid as an
indirect cost and used as a part of the indirect cost calculation.

Jennifer Morgan, M.H.A.
Director, Office of Grants and Contracts
Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Health Systems
3811 O'Hara Street, Pittsburgh PA  15213
Voice:  412-624-0743  Fax:  412-624-0714

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Deanne Hoenscheid [mailto:xxxxxx@LEHIGH.EDU]
> Sent: Thursday, November 18, 1999 12:00 PM
> To: xxxxxx@hrinet.org
> Subject: Re: Personal membership costs charged to contract/grants
>
>
> Valerie,
>
> I do not charge personal memberships to contracts/grants
> (except in the
> instance that you mentioned when it does not specifically state the
> individual membership cost).  Although the OMB Circular does not
> specifically state what not to charge, I have read in other documents
> where it specifically states this. For example, when I
> previously worked
> for the Commonwealth of PA, we dealt with the Dept. of Justice quite a
> bit.  They had their own summary manual of unallowable charges (their
> interpretation of OMB) and it stated No Personal Memberships
> specifically.  For this reason, I've followed this rule for other
> agencies.
>
> I, too, would be interested in hearing how others handle this.
>
>
>
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
> Deanne L. Hoenscheid            Phone:  (610)758-3863
> Materials Research Center       Fax:    (610)758-3526
> Lehigh University               E-mail: xxxxxx@lehigh.edu
> 462 Whitaker Laboratory
> 5 E. Packer Avenue
> Bethlehem, PA  18015
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>
>
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