The direct salary that may be awarded to the University under a Sponsored Agreement is equal to the estimated percentage effort to be expended by the individual employee multiplied by the employee's "Institutional Base Salary." This base salary, which excludes fringe benefits and facilities and administrative (F&A) costs, is defined as the annual compensation that the institution pays for an employee's appointment, whether that employee's time is spent on research, teaching, patient care, or other activities.
If an employee is paid by MUSC and an Affiliate such as UMA, then Institutional Base Salary consists of his/her combined MUSC and Affiliate salary. Because the Veterans Administration (VA) Hospital is not an affiliate of MUSC, VA salary must not be included. However, incentive pay must not be included in Federal and State award proposals and may not be charged to Federal and State sponsoring agencies.
Grants and Contracts Accounting (GCA) is responsible for coordinating reimbursement to the Affiliate for the appropriate portion of Affiliate salary and fringe benefits attributable to work performed by the employee on a Sponsored Project. GCA then requests reimbursement from the sponsor for these expenditures in addition to the appropriate portion of the employee?s MUSC salary, other direct charges, and F&A costs.
Questions regarding Affiliate salary and fringe benefits should be addressed to the appropriate Grants and Contracts Accounting Accountant based on departmental assignment (see Distribution of Grants by Administrator) or at 792-2850.
Procedures
1. When submitting a proposal for a Sponsored Award for Federal, Federal flow-through, and State agency awards, the Principal Investigator and his/her staff must list the employee?s Institutional Base Salary (combined MUSC + Affiliate base salary, excluding incentive pay) in the proposal budget. The combined salary must be multiplied by the budgeted effort percentage to calculate the budgeted salary amount for the proposal budget.
2. For NIH Sponsored Awards, the budgeted amount of base salary must be limited to the current NIH salary cap limitation in accordance with Procedure 4-3.07: Determining Salary Expenditures in Excess of the NIH Salary Cap. The NIH salary cap amounts listed are for full-time (100% FTE) positions; if the employee works part-time, then the employee?s FTE percentage must be multiplied by the applicable salary cap to determine the maximum base salary. After determining the appropriate capped salary, the capped salary must be multiplied by the budgeted effort percentage to calculate the budgeted salary amount for the proposal budget.
3. For Sponsored Awards from corporate sponsors, Affiliate incentive pay may also be included in the proposal budget at the department?s discretion. The combined salary including incentive pay must be multiplied by the budgeted effort percentage to calculate the budgeted salary amount for the proposal budget.
4. Upon receipt of the Sponsored Award, the Departmental Business Manager and his/her staff must review the awarded budget and determine which employee(s) who will be performing work on the project are currently being paid a combined MUSC + Affiliate salary or Affiliate-only salary.
5. The Departmental Business Manager must complete an Affiliate Salary Worksheet for each of the subject employees using the Affiliate Salary Worksheet Instructions.
6. The Departmental Business Manager must prepare a worksheet for employees with qualifying combined MUSC + Affiliate salary or Affiliate-only salary or for each employee whose combined base salary exceeds the NIH salary cap for each instance when a new or changed salary distribution is necessary, including:
a. New Sponsored Awards
b. Salary distribution (fund) changes
c. Salary changes
d. Effort distribution changes
e. Changes in encumbrance dates
7. In completing the worksheet, the Business Manager must enter the employee?s MUSC Base Salary amount, Affiliate Base Salary amount (and, if applicable, Affiliate Incentive for corporate awards), FTE percentage, UDAK fund sources and awarded/budgeted effort percentages. The completed worksheet will automatically calculate the percentage distribution of the employee?s MUSC base salary and Affiliate base salary to be charged to each of the employee?s funding sources.
8. The Departmental Business Manager must attach the completed worksheet to the MUSC salary distribution form and route it to GCA for review and approval. GCA will review the salary distribution and worksheet, approve the distribution or contact the Business Manager if corrections are necessary, and forward the distribution through normal approval channels in Finance and Administration.
9. GCA will prepare reimbursement requests from the Affiliate based on worksheets received in GCA by the 20th of each month. The Sponsored Project UDAK will be charged for the appropriate amount of Affiliate salaries (account 50214) and fringe benefits (account 50215) on the last working day of each month.
10. GCA will include the expenditures charged to the Sponsored Project for the Affiliate salary and fringe benefits, MUSC salary and fringe benefits, other direct charges, and F&A costs when preparing reimbursement requests/invoices to the sponsor.
Forms