Resources:
Post Award Fiscal Compliance Cost Allocation and Cost Allocation Examples.
Review information on developing proposal budgets.
Facilities & Administrative Costs (F&A)
Budget Justification
Cost Share
Clinical Trial Budget Resources
Animal Research Considerations
Human Subjects Research Considerations
Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) Considerations
A budget is a detailed statement outlining estimated project costs that support a sponsored project. It should include all Direct Costs, as well as the calculated Facilities and Administrative (F&A) costs required to carry out the project objectives. The proposal budget should be derived directly from the project description and serves as the financial expression of the project.
Follow sponsor guidelines on requirements, allowability, and format. Be aware of specific purchase restrictions such as the Telecommunications Purchase Restrictions on federal awards.
Before making purchases with new vendors for procurement purchases under $35k, verify they are not listed within the SAM.gov exclusions list.
Plan for requirements in federal contracts that impact your budget.
Costing principles in GIM 23 and the Uniform Guidance apply to all sponsored programs at UW.
Sponsor and UW budget categories sometimes don’t match. Review UW Budget categories and try to map them to the sponsor categories when preparing your budget.
The System to Administer Grants Electronically (SAGE) is the UW approval routing system for sponsored program proposals. Associated departments review and approve the entire proposal including related budgets via eGC1 forms.
SAGE Budget is the UW recommended tool for preparing proposal budgets and is required at time of award with an Award Setup Request. It provides streamlined, efficient entry with reliable calculations leveraged from institutional data (UW salaries, benefits, and F&A rates).
Budgets created using this tool also provide an easy-to-read summary for reviewers and Principal Investigators. SAGE Budgets can be connected to eGC1s for easy reference, and can also be used in Grant Runner to populate budget data on a federal RR budget form.
For Award Setup or Modification Requests, you are required to attach a SAGE Budget. Review How to set up an award at the UW for more details.
The UW prefers to be paid in U.S. Dollars, not foreign currency. Exchange rates fluctuate on a daily basis. If awarded in foreign currency, the value of sponsor payments can vary throughout the life of an award.
If the sponsor insists the proposal budget be expressed in foreign currency (and will pay in foreign currency), use an online currency converter to calculate the budget amounts on the eGC1 from U.S. dollars (USD) into the sponsor’s currency.
When sponsors make award payments in foreign currencies, the PI and department need to review the award amount and provide a budget using the current exchange rate. This is used to estimate the award amount in USD to set up the sponsored program budget. It is the PI’s responsibility to monitor spending and currency fluctuations closely throughout the award. Whenever converting foreign currency to USD for use in official budget documents, attach a screenshot that shows the date of the currency conversion in SAGE.
Note: The PI and department are responsible for resolving deficits, including those that may arise from currency fluctuation.
Review
When costs will benefit more than one project, they need to be allocated in proportion to how they will benefit each award. Document the allocation methodology used to budget the cost in your budget justification and in your award file. Make sure that methodology is consistently applied across like circumstances.
Acceptable Allocation Method Examples:
Costs that will only benefit one award should only be budgeted for that award.
Costs may not be allocated to more than one project based on budgetary convenience.
Direct costs are expenses specifically associated with a particular sponsored project or activity or that can be directly assigned to that project or activity with a high degree of accuracy (e.g. supplies allocation).
Personnel Salaries and Benefits are typically the largest categories of expenses. Review UW Human Resources compensation information.
Include:
Compensation for teaching costs unless the sponsored program activity type is for Instruction or Research training, consultation or other non-University activity, excess compensation charges not included in Institutional Base Salary (IBS), and administrative or clerical salaries, unless justified and approved by the sponsor.
Some sponsors impose salary limitations, also sometimes known as salary caps e.g.: National Institutes of Health (NIH) salary caps.
Review guidance for Documenting Salary Caps on Proposal Budgets.
Faculty with 9-month appointments
Approved supplements are available in the payroll system and reflected in the Institutional Base Salary.
When allowed by the sponsor, these increases should be included in the budget calculation. Increases must be reasonable and justified in the proposal.
Salaries of administrative and clerical staff are normally treated as F&A costs.
Administrative and clerical costs may be proposed as direct costs if all four of these criteria exist:
If these costs are budgeted as direct costs, you must provide justification in the proposal.
Examples of potentially allowable direct charged administrative and clerical staff costs:
If questioned, PI must justify expenses to the sponsor and auditors and will be responsible for paying back any unallowable expenses, if required.
For faculty who have a VA appointment (up to 40 hours or “8/8th”) and up to a full-time appointment with the UW, use the UW IBS to calculate effort and salary compensation.
Example:
Dr. Y has a full-time salary rate of $100,000 has a 50% UW appointment and is requesting 10% salary support. The commitment on the proposal represents 10% of the 50% appointment.
Graduate student appointments (GSA) are considered full-time at 50% FTE during the academic year and 100% during summer. When including Graduate assistants, budget for salaries, fringe benefits and tuition remission.
Use the average first-year postdoc compensation level in the respective school/college, or in the absence of a policy, consult the UW Academic Resources salary rates and minimums schedule. Budget for full actual costs.
NIH Awards: The maximum amount awarded by NIH for graduate students supported on research grants or cooperative agreements is tied to the zero level National Research Service Award (NRSA) postdoctoral stipend in effect at the time the grant award is issued.
Employee Benefits (i.e., fringe) are a direct cost charged as a percentage of salary. The rates are reviewed and approved by the federal government and apply to all sponsored projects.
Use the active rates for the applicable time period, and use the preliminary/proposed rates (if available) for all future years.
Current and Preliminary Benefit Rates
Before including APL personnel or locations in your budget, contact the appropriate APL department administrator. They will help ensure all applicable APL Prorated Direct Costs, APL Fixed Fee and budget justifications are included in your proposal budget.
APL’s sole purpose is research, and its operating expenses are an allowable direct cost (2 CFR Part §200.413) on projects where APL personnel or locations are involved. APL operating expenses are recovered through the application of the APL Prorated Direct Costs (PDC) rate.
Individual people or entities participating in a sponsored program as a non-employee.
Examples include:
Review a full list of UW personal service categories.
Consult sponsor guidance for including consultants in your budget, requirements vary.
Independent contractors, who are:
Include a letter of collaboration with dates of service, rate of pay, other miscellaneous expenses, and deliverables.
Collaborators at other higher education institutions who plan to use institutional resources are considered subrecipients and will need a formal subaward set up.
Review guidance for determining Subrecipient, Vendor, or Consultant?
Direct costs for stipends or subsistence allowances, travel allowances, and registration fees paid to or on behalf of participants or trainees (but not employees) in connection with conferences or training projects.
Participant support costs are allowable if the project includes an education or outreach component, the costs are separately budgeted, and the agency approves the cost. Include the following in budget justification: “The inclusion of the participant support costs in the budget and the subsequent award by the agency will be considered prior agency approval.”
More information from Post Award Fiscal Compliance on Participant Support.
Vendors or Suppliers who provide routine services for a fee, (e.g. Consultant Travel, Advertising, Shipping, Rent, Inpatient and outpatient hospital charges, Laboratory Fees).
Is it a Sponsored Program or a Service?
Review guidance for preparing proposals with subawards and the UW policy for Sponsored Program Subaward Administration. List each subaward separately, using the appropriate subaward object class/spend category. Calculate F&A on subawards following GIM 13 guidelines.
Review subaward budget development and F&A calculations.
Review guidance for determining Subrecipient, Vendor, or Consultant?
If a prime sponsor has a published F&A rate policy, the subrecipient should propose its F&A in accordance with this policy.
For example, the NIH limits F&A on Grants to Foreign and International Organizations to 8% with a few exceptions.
If the originating sponsor is silent on F&A, the F&A rate subrecipient should use is 15% Modified Total Direct Costs (MTDC). See GIM 7.
Include estimated travel costs according to UW travel policies for:
Most sponsors require that you justify and retain documentation for travel expenses including how they benefit the project.
Review Post Award Fiscal Compliance travel guidance.
List supplies by major type, (e.g., publication costs, glassware, chemicals). Include the estimated cost of each type and how estimates were calculated, e.g. publications costs: list number of pages and cost per page.
Describe the allocation rationale for supplies and materials between different proposals/awards in your budget justification.
Prior year accounting records or other documentation may be used to support estimates. Retain documentation in your award file.
Review your sponsor guidelines on equipment fabrication, rental or purchases. Review Equipment Inventory Office guidance on Government Furnished Equipment.
The UW Equipment capitalization threshold is $5000. Equipment is excluded from F&A.
Review more information from the Equipment Inventory Office on Acquisitions.
Describe the equipment that will be fabricated along with a list of items that go into fabrication (e.g. materials, cost center services, salary, etc.). Review Equipment Inventory Office information on Fabrication. F&A is not applied on costs involved in fabricating equipment unless the equipment will be transferred to the sponsor or external entity for use at the end of the project.
Each piece of rented equipment should be listed by type, model number, and manufacturer along with the current rental rate of each item. Equipment rental is considered a “service” charge and F&A should be calculated.
Include associated tuition charges for graduate students employed in a 50% FTE appointment for full payroll quarters. Review Current Tuition and Fees from the Office of Planning and Budgeting. Tuition costs are exempt from F&A.
F&A costs are expenses that cannot be specifically identified with a particular project or activity. Also known as “indirect costs” or “overhead,” these costs are for buildings, utilities, services of administrative offices such as purchasing, accounting, payroll, and personnel offices, and other expenses necessary for operations of the institution. Review GIM 13 for more information.
What you need to know to select the correct F&A rate:
Review Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) Services covered under F&A costs
In limited situations, the Director of Sponsored Programs may waive F&A. To request a waiver, include the completed F&A waiver form, signed by the PI with Dean and Chair concurrence, in the eGC1 with your proposal materials to the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP).
The University does not waive F&A for for-profit entities.
Budget Justifications are sometimes called budget narratives or budget details and are an important part of the review process (internally and externally) and details how the sponsor’s funds will be spent. Justify budget costs in detail according to the sponsor instructions. Sponsor scientific reviewers may do a preliminary cost analysis using the budget justification to determine if the science justifies the budgeted cost.
Review the budget justification primer for examples.
Explain estimates or unusual circumstances in your budget justification. Retain supporting documentation, rationales, and sources for estimates, allocation or unusual circumstances along with vendor catalogs or written quotes as support documentation in your local award file.
Example estimation tools, methods, and resources include:
If a sponsor does not allow certain costs as a direct cost, they may not be included in the budget.
For example, administrative/clerical costs are not allowed as a direct cost on a federal grant. If you believe your program qualifies for an exception, you must describe how the four criteria for direct charging administrative/clerical costs are met.
OSP’s approval of the eGC1 or the sponsor making an award based on your proposal where the criteria for direct charging administrative/clerical costs were met, does not mean those costs cannot be questioned later.
Cost share is the costs of a sponsored project that the sponsor does NOT pay for.
A sponsor can require cost share and must state this requirement in the funding opportunity. A cost share commitment also occurs when a proposal includes allowable expenses or quantifiable contributions that will not be charged to the sponsor (e.g. effort level of personnel listed with no commensurate request for salary).
Cost share is not expected by federal sponsors if the agency does not include a cost share requirement in the funding opportunity. When not mandatory, the inclusion of a cost share commitment may not be used as a factor in merit review. Voluntary cost share, therefore, should not be presented in the proposal.
Cost sharing is discouraged and leads to:
When cost share is submitted in a proposal and accepted by the sponsor it becomes a binding commitment. The department/PI is required to provide, monitor and report on the committed resources during the project.
Sponsor approval is required to claim waived F&A as cost share. When direct costs are contributed as cost share, the associated F&A is also considered cost share.
Approvals from other UW units contributing cost share must be on the eGC1 or otherwise documented.
Costs and budget issues to consider include:
The following services are covered under F&A costs:
Costs and budget issues to consider include:
Consider whether you will need to hire staff, or contract with UW’s Institute for Translational Health Services (ITHS) for staff. Decide whether you will need a staff person to serve as an Institutional Review Board (IRB) liaison because the UW will be the lead for collaborative or multi-site research that is being reviewed by a single IRB.
At all times, it is the PI’s responsibility to ensure all trainees or center activities involving human subjects are carried out under an approved IRB study number.
Include any subject payments or reimbursement of subjects’ expenses. If subjects’ health insurance will be charged for research-related clinical items and services; consider whether the grant will pay for co-pays and deductibles.
The UW IRBs do not currently charge review fees though this may change for the review of non-UW sites. However, if the research will be reviewed by a non-UW (external) IRB, the external IRB may charge fees. You may need to include IRB review fees in the budget in the following situations:
If your research is industry-initiated and industry-funded, you must send the study to an independent IRB (for example WCG IRB or Advarra) for IRB approval instead of the UW IRB. The industry sponsor will pay the IRB review fees charged by the independent IRB, but they are also required to pay HSD an administrative fee. This administrative fee should be included in your budget. See HSD’s information on the HSD Administrative Fee.
Emergency medicine research that requires the special Exception to Informed Consent must conduct community consultation before beginning the study, which requires funds. Consult with HSD for guidance about appropriate activities, based on the nature of the research intervention and the study population. It almost always involves more than public service announcements, news releases and bus placards.
Federal nondiscrimination laws require clinical trials to allow interested and eligible subjects to participate even if they do not speak English. This means that researchers should develop a plan for how translation and interpretation will be provided for interested and eligible subjects. For studies that may have small numbers of these subjects, this may best be handled by including in the budget the cost of retaining an interpretation and translation service that can be called upon as needed.
If your project includes hazardous materials review the following considerations.
Take into account costing allocation of materials. Review GIM 23 – Distribution of Costs Across Two or More Sponsored Programs and guidance from Post Award Fiscal Compliance on cost allocation.
• Radioactive Waste Disposal
• Calibration of radiation detection instruments