University policy requires that an employee’s Institutional Base Salary (IBS) be used when preparing proposal budgets for external sponsors. Depending on the timing of the proposal and expected start date, salaries may be inflated for anticipated out-year increases or even entered at a higher level if a significant raise is anticipated in the first year, but the starting point is always the IBS and must be verifiable in iForms.  

One of the biggest challenges in preparing collaborative proposals lies in getting timely and accurate salary information for everyone involved. To facilitate work on collaborative proposals that include employees from other departments, the preaward offices have developed two items for your use.

1. SPOC Lists: The SPOC lists let grant managers know whom to ask for information when working with unfamiliar departments.

2. Salary Request Form  - Because salaries are confidential information, use of the form will give the department receiving it a means of verifying the legitimacy of the request. Do not upload or attach the salary document in SPS

The ultimate intent of the form, the procedure and the SPOC lists is to reduce the number of proposals that are returned to the owning organization for salary changes – with the hope that routing for approval will go more quickly and smoothly.  The more information you can provide, the better the chances of this working well.

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

REQUESTING ORG UNIT

•  Prepares salary request forms for all non-dept personnel on the proposal
•  Emails forms to the appropriate SPOCs

RESPONDING ORG UNIT/SPOC

•  SPOC receiving the email either checks each individual’s salary rate in iForms  or requests the information from the DEPT payroll person
•  Confirms employee’s agreement to participate and the level of effort
•  Completes the form for each employee
•  If applicable, fills out a cost sharing form and obtains required signatures
•  Returns the form(s) within TWO business days

REQUESTING ORG UNIT

•  Enters the salaries in SPS using the IBS amounts provided
•  Takes into account appointment type and academic year/summer effort differences if applicable
•  Inflates and prorates in the standard format unless sponsor requirements differ
•  Enters any required cost sharing in SPS
•  Routes for approvals 

RESPONDING ORG UNIT/ SPOC

•  Reviews the proposal to confirm correct IBS, appointment type(s), cost sharing and level(s) of effort
•  If correct, approves
•  If incorrect, returns proposal to owning department with clear explanation of the problem(s)