PERSONNEL
Faculty Release Time
Faculty release time can be calculated in two different ways:

• as a percentage of the regular faculty appointment; or

• as a fraction of a regular faculty member's teaching load; or

• determine the amount of effort the faculty member will spend on the sponsored project.

• calculate the value of that effort against the faculty member's nine-month appointment:

2) Calculating Summer Salary (Using a Daily Rate):

• determine the amount of effort the faculty member will spend on the sponsored project;

• determine the "cost" of one day of effort by dividing the faculty member's annual salary by 163 -- the average number of work days in one contract year.

• multiply the number of days committed during the summer by the calculated "cost" of each day

1. Budgeting for External Consultants

Consultants' fees vary considerably and can be hard to pin down. In most cases, you will want to budget consultants as per prevailing market rates and budget them on a daily basis. When in doubt or when you are not sure who will serve as an external consultant to your project, a general rule of thumb is to budget an external consultant at $350 to $500 per day -- plus expenses such as airfare, hotel, meals, and local transportation. You should, however, try to negotiate this fee prior to the submission of your proposal.

Consulting honoraria given to UST faculty who participate in a project for which federal funds are granted to UST are subject to all relevant federal regulations. These regulations allow such payments only "in unusual cases where consultation is across departmental lines or involves a separate or remote operation AND the work performed by the consultant is in addition to regular departmental load."

Ref. OMB Circular A-21 [J.6.e.1]: "Since intra-university consulting is assumed to be undertaken as a university obligation requiring no compensation in addition to full-time base salary, the principle also applies to faculty members who function as consultants or otherwise contribute to a sponsored agreement conducted by another faculty member of the same institution."

Equipment

• At the University of St. Thomas, equipment items that cost less than $500 can be listed in your budget under "Materials and Supplies." More expensive items must be listed under "Equipment."
• For federal proposals, permanent equipment is defined as an item or interrelated group of items of equipment that exceed $5,000 in value and one year's useful life. Smaller equipment items can be listed as equipment (per UST policy), but will not be subject to the permanent equipment inventory restrictions imposed by the federal government.

Airfare

• Airfare should be round-trip, economy class.
• Travel outside of the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, and Mexico must be carefully justified (and may be disallowed by the funding agency).
• The Fly America Act requires that all federally-funded airfare must be on U.S. flag carriers unless the use of such carriers results in a federally-defined delay when compared with a non-U.S. carrier OR no U.S. carrier serves a particular segment of the trip. This requirement is firmly enforced; ignoring it can be costly to an individual project director.

• Ground transportation costs might include mileage (at 37.5 cents per mile), a rental car (which also requires careful justification), taxis, or rental of buses for project participants. Rental of the UST 21-passenger bus is $50/day for trips less than 100 miles, an additional $.35/mile for every mile beyond 100 miles. Add $16/hour for a driver. Contracts with area bus companies vary, in the range of $100-160 per 1/2 day (minimum rental).

• Many travel plans also include meals and lodging when away, or "per diem costs." UST recommends that meals not exceed $50 per day. Federal agencies expect a daily figure for meals and lodging that is in line with their own rates. The federal government publishes per diem rates for each state and for major cities worldwide.

• Beware of simply providing round-number estimates in this category -- round numbers convey to your reviewers the impression that you have not carefully thought through the details of your request in this area. Carefully consider the items you will need and quantify them explicitly either on the appropriate budget line or in a separate budget justification page.

• If your discipline typically requires page charges for publication of research articles, this is an allowable item for many funding sources.

• In most cases, you should budget $.05 per copy and provide the reviewer of your proposal with a good faith estimate of the total number of copies you will need to make. For special printing or binding projects, contact the Service Center (2-6585) for a more precise estimate of the costs.

• These will always be estimated items. However, it may be useful to think through the number of mailings and the number of addressees that will be involved. Consider whether bulk mail (>200) is a possibility. Consider your anticipated telephone usage, calculating roughly 10 cents per minute or $6 per hour for long-distance charges.

• For budget purposes, consultants are independent contractors who provide a specific service; if in doubt about the independent contractor status of a consultant you wish to employ, consult Human Resources.
• An employee of the University of St. Thomas who provides services to a sponsored project is not considered a consultant. Individuals who are employed by the University must be listed as "Personnel" and the grant must provide fringe benefits for each person at the appropriate rate.
• On federal proposals, consultants must be paid their normal rate OR Level IV of the Executive Schedule (see Code of Federal Regulations), whichever is less. Fringe benefits are not charged against consultant services.

Inflation Factor
For initiatives that extend two or more years, it is wise in most cases to build an inflation factor into your budget proposal to make certain that your projected expenditures keep up with rising costs.  You should, however, always consult the agency guidelines to make certain that an inflation factor is allowed.  In most instances, an inflation factor of between 2% to 5% is reasonable and defensible.

Please note, however, that actual annual raises for UST personnel are governed by UST Human Resources policies; that is, persons employed by the University of St. Thomas are treated equitably across employment categories – regardless of the source of funding supporting their position.  So, even if you have additional funds in your grant budget to give personnel a higher-than-average raise in any given year, you will likely not be able to exceed the standard institutional pay increases for that year.

• [TOTAL REQUEST = Total Direct Costs + Indirect Costs]

Waiver of Indirect Costs

All grant proposals submitted by the University of St. Thomas must include a request to recover indirect costs at the full rate of 30% of modified total direct costs (see above).  Exceptions to this policy include:

• When the funding agency forbids the recovery of any indirect costs.  Provide documentation indicating the agency’s policy.
• When the funding agency caps the recovery of indirect costs at a rate lower than the UST rate, use the maximum rate allowed by the agency and provide documentation indicating that the agency has capped the recovery of indirect costs.
• When you have secured an institutional waiver of indirect costs.  While all requests for waivers of indirect costs for projects under $5,000 are automatic, in rare instances UST will provide a waiver of indirect costs on larger projects.  Contact David Steele for more information on institutional waivers.