Standards for Documentation of Personnel Expenses
As a recipient of federal funding, UAF is required to comply with the OMB Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards (“Uniform Guidance”), as well as other federal requirements for certifying effort expended on sponsored awards. UAF requires all individuals who receive federal sponsored funding to comply with University policies and sponsoring agency regulations regarding the proposing, charging, and reporting of effort on those awards.
UAF receives significant funding for sponsored projects from federal and state governments, private foundations, organizations, and industry. There must be accurate effort planning and confirmation when these funds are expended for salaries and wages.
Uniform Guidance (2 CFR 200.430 – Compensation-personal services.) outlines the requirements for non-Federal entities to track and report payroll-related costs on Federal awards, usually referred to as “effort reporting” or “effort certification”. The primary requirement is that strong internal controls must exist for the reporting of salaries and wages to ensure that the charges “are accurate, allowable, and properly allocated” to the correct award. The reported effort must also be “be incorporated into the official records of the non-Federal entity,” which UAF handles via OnBase.
UAF faculty and staff are expected to charge their time to sponsored awards commensurate with the committed effort expended on all activities they perform. Payroll charges to sponsored awards and cost sharing recorded for faculty and staff serve as the initial data points for the University’s effort reporting system.
UAF’s practice is to utilize an after-the-fact effort reporting system to certify that salary either charged or cost shared to sponsored awards is reasonable and consistent with the work performed. The individual’s effort is first assigned to specific awards in the payroll system based on anticipated activities. Actual effort expended on each project is certified by a responsible person with suitable means of verification that the work was performed, generally the principal investigator, at the end of specified reporting periods. The effort certification should be a reasonable estimate of how time was expended. Uniform Guidance Section 200.430(c) states:
“It is recognized that teaching, research, service, and administration are often inextricably intermingled in an academic setting. When recording salaries and wages charged to Federal awards for IHEs [institutes of higher, a precise assessment of factors that contribute to costs is therefore not always feasible, nor is it expected.”
Additional background information is available in Statewide's Accounting and Administrative Manual, Section D-04.
All individuals involved with the administration and conduct of federally-sponsored award activities, including central and departmental sponsored project administrators, principal investigators, and other research personnel must comply with this policy.
Adherence to this policy is required for all effort related to federally-sponsored awards as well as any non-federal awards where the non-federal sponsor requires effort reporting.
- Non-Exempt Employees: certify every 2 weeks via their submitted timesheets
- Exempt Employees: certify with trimester Effort Certification Statements.
Principal Investigators (PI)/Faculty Members:
- Understand their own as well as their staff members’ (non-faculty personnel) levels of effort committed, charged and reported on all applicable awards.
- Review, initiate corrections if necessary, and electronically certify their individual their Trimester Project Effort Certification(s).
- Communicate significant effort changes to the department business administrators.
- If applicable, the PI must formally request via the OGCA Effort Certification email (uaf-ecert@alaska.edu) that the certification responsibility be delegated to another individual who has sufficient technical knowledge and/or is in a position that provides for suitable means of verification that the work was performed.
- Review salary charges on awards on a monthly basis with grant manager and identify any effort-related changes and communicate with administrators to post corrections, if needed.
- Re-certify and electronically sign if effort changes are made after a statement has been certified.
Department/Unit Business offices:
- Monitor and review effort commitments, salary charges, and cost sharing on all applicable awards.
- Communicate to OGCA any changes that require sponsor notification and/or approval.
- Review salary charges with PI/faculty member and post any salary distribution updates and/or corrections in a timely manner.
- Check effort certifications for accuracy during the review period.
There are three effort reporting periods at UAF each fiscal year (trimester basis): (1) fall, (2) spring, and (3) summer. Approximately one month prior to the end of a reporting period, OGCA will send out an email reminder that the period will be ending.
Please send all OGCA receives the completed effort certifications via email (uaf-ecert@alaska.edu) . Once the certifications are verified for completeness, compliance, and signatures we will hold them in our database. The unit will be notified if any certifications do not meet review criters or corrections must be made.
Note that total effort on Effort Certification Statements must equal 100% and cannot exceed 100%.
Summer 2023 (R11-R17)
- Time: May 7,2023-August 12,2023)
- Printing:August 22,2023
- Certification Statement Deadline: September 21,2023
Fall 2023 (R18-R2)
- Time: August 12,2023-January 13,2024
- Printing: January 23,2024
- Certification Statement Deadline: February 22,2024
Spring 2024 (R3-R10)
- Time: January 14-May 4 (2024)
- Printing: May 14, 2024
- Certification Statement Deadline: June 13,2024
If you need to be added to the UAF-OGCA-GEC@alaska.edu, please email zjdurik@alaska.edu
