Common Budget Expenses

Faculty/Staff Compensation

When a grant is awarded, the grant budget often provides grant relief in an academic department. When a person in a department has a portion (% of FTE) of his/her salary charged directly to the grant, then that portion is NOT charged to his/her department.

For example: Let's say a faculty member's salary is $60,000 for 1.0 FTE. One course release (17% of the $60,000 or $10,200) is charged directly to the grant. This leaves $10,200 in the faculty member's department budget. This $10,200 is referred to as "released money." The department can then use these funds to hire personnel to "take over" the activities that the faculty member has had to relinquish to be on the grant. Often such an arrangement benefits the department. If, in the example above, the department hires an adjunct to teach the course relinquished by the faculty member, the department will pay the adjunct rate, leaving the additional money for department use. Or the department might be able to hire an additional part-time faculty member.

When calculating the grant budget, actual numbers/figures must be used to calculate the appropriate and realistic time and effort of personnel associated with the project. Please keep in mind that salaries are personal and confidential and should not be shared with anyone other than the project director for the grant.

Rule to Remember: The Federal Government has strict rules about the amount of time people work. A person cannot have an FTE of more than 1.0. Thus, if someone is already 1.0 during the academic year, s/he will need to relinquish some current projects/courses to take on a new grant-funded project. The persons working on the grant will usually be directly charged to the new grant budget, if FTE amounts were built into the budget, and the department budget will be “released” from this amount. This released money is then used to cover teaching, advising and other items the grant-funded individual(s) relinquished.

Course Release Equivalencies (For use with Faculty)
.0835 FTE = ½ course
.167 (.17) FTE = 1 course (approximately 8 hours/wk)
.34 FTE = 2 courses
.50 FTE = 3 courses
.67 FTE = 4 courses
.83 FTE = 5 courses
1.0 FTE = 6 courses
This represents the average St. Paul faculty members’ academic year contract, which is typically 9 months. However, some are 10 months, others are 12 months, and still more variations exist.

Summer Course Equivalencies (For use with Faculty)
1 month = .0835 FTE (equivalent of ½ course)
2 months = .167 FTE (equivalent of 1 course)
3 months = .222 FTE
This assumes full-time effort (i.e. 40 hours/week) for each month. (National Science Foundation considers 22% of one’s time in the summer as full-time.)

Benefits

All faculty and staff must account for benefits when applying for a grant, even if they are not currently benefit eligible. The current benefit rate is 26.85% (.2685).
For example: If you will be paying a faculty member a stipend of $100 for work on a grant, you must budget an additional $26.85 in benefits ($100 x .2685 ).

Student Research Assistants

All student research assistants written into a grant should be paid at either $10/hr or $12/hr, depending upon whether employment is during the academic year or summer and/or whether employment is on-campus or off-campus. The Assistantship Mentoring Program (Teaching Assistant, Research Assistant & Program Assistant) rate is also $10/hr. Student Research Assistants experience a hands-on research and learning experience and get paid at such a rate so they do not have to work a second or third job outside the college, jeopardizing their learning/research experience.

Student Formula
Semester = 14 weeks
Summer = 10 weeks

Semester Example: 1 student @ $10/hr x 15 hrs/wk x 14 wks = $2,100
(15 hours/week is usually the maximum a student is capable of working during the academic year; International students are prohibited from working more than 20 hours/wk, total at all jobs on campus)

Summer Example: 1 student @ $12/hr x 40 hrs/wk x 10wks = $4,800
(Students doing summer research usually work full-time, 40hrs/wk for 10 weeks in the summer)

Outside Consultants

Anyone from outside St. Kate's who will be paid as part of the grant will be paid as an Outside Consultant. This may include speakers, consultants, external project evaluators, alumnae, focus group participants* etc.

* Many principal investigators choose to pay focus group participants with gift cards to protect the anonymity of their subjects. Consult the Institutional Review Board on this issue!

Travel

This area includes airfare, cab fare, mileage, lodging, meals and conference fees.

Airfare = allowance of up to $800/person

Hotel = allowance of up to $180/night

Mileage = .55 cents/mile (follows the Federal Rate). St. Kate's must be used as the departure point and return destination for any mileage calculations.

Conference Fee = If you know the exact amount, use it. Otherwise, estimate.

Meals = St. Kate's per diem rate is $46/day. Use this amount when budgeting.

Equipment

Equipment is any single item that costs over $5,000.

Supplies

Supplies can be anything from software to books to lab equipment to office supplies to gift certificates for focus group participants, provided these items are necessary to the work of the grant. Also consider any document service/ publishing needs. Note that food is a hospitality expense unless it is being used in an experiment.

Hospitality

Hospitality includes all food and beverages (not including meals that are a part of travel per diem or food used in research), whether lunches for a meeting or food for a major conference event. Not all grants cover hospitality. If you have a focus group and need food or beverages, you need to justify this need. Alcohol is NEVER a covered expense. Note that per diem (meal costs) for travel should be budgeted as a travel expense and food used in an experiment should be listed as a supply.

F & A Rate

(Facilities and Administrative Rate, also known as Indirect Cost Rate)
The University has a 46% F&A Rate which is applied to all faculty and staff salaries AND benefits on a grant. Many foundations do not provide funds toward the F&A, but we are able to count this as St. Kate's cost-share.