Included on this page:
Direct costs:
- Grant expenditures that can be identified specifically with a particular
sponsored project,
-
for example, if a PI has to buy a instrument to
conduct a specific experiment clearly related to the
research of a specific grant or contract
- Salaries for researchers, travel, etc.
Factors affecting allowability of costs:
- They must be reasonable
- They must be allocable to sponsored
agreements under the principles and methods
provided herein
- They must be given consistent treatment under
generally accepted accounting principles
- Special restrictions may apply
-
"Reasonable costs.
A cost may be considered reasonable if the nature of the goods or
services acquired or applied, and the amount involved therefore, reflect
the action that a prudent person would have taken under the circumstances
prevailing at the time the decision to incur the cost was made."
-
Major considerations:
- Necessary? Do you have another piece of equipment that could
do the job,
is the trip necessary to the research or just a "nice extra")
- Laws, regulations, sponsored agreement terms and conditions
- Due prudence
- Consistent with established institutional policy
-
"A cost is allocable to a particular cost objective (i.e., a
specific function, project, sponsored agreement, department or the like)
if the goods or services involved are chargeable or assignable to such
cost objective in accordance with relative benefits received or other
equitable relationship." - OMB Circular A-21
-
Major considerations:
- Solely for sponsored agreement, or
- Proportion of benefit to sponsored agreement can be determined through
"use of reasonable methods", or
- Necessary for overall operation and is deemed to be assignable in part to
sponsored projects
- Grants and contracts (budget type 05)
- Office of Management and Budget, Circular
A-21, 04/26/96, further amended 08/29/97
