Effort Certification
Don’t Ignore It…
Take credit for your efforts!
Revised 7/11
Objectives
• Operational Definitions:
– Effort
– Institutional Base Salary
– Workload
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Why certify? (or what if we don’t?)
Who is required to certify?
What are we really certifying?
Workload example
Effort certification preview
What is Effort?
Effort Certification Defined
• The reporting and confirmation of one’s
time spent conducting any university
activity that typically is expressed as a
percentage of the total institutional
compensated based time (Institutional
Based Salary (IBS))
Effort is
proposed
Salary is
charged
Effort is
Certified
Effort Certification Defined
•
Effort:
Work or the proportion of time spent
on any activity and expressed as a
percentage of University time. It
does not equate to a 40 hour week
or a fixed number of hours.
•
Certify:
Assert in writing the correctness of
employee effort.
Institutional Base Salary
(IBS)
Institutional Base Salary
• Definition of Institutional Base Salary (IBS) at UD:
– 9,10,11,12 month faculty, professionals, etc.
– all pay associated with the contractual agreement
– full base pay amount
– administrative supplement
– any summer months paid out as either summer
research or as part of annual pay
• What is NOT included?
– winter teaching overload
– Overtime/reg semester overload
• Effort certification is based on IBS
Faculty Workload
The Building Blocks of Faculty Effort
Faculty workload policies
• Per the AAUP and the current Collective Bargaining
Agreement, all academic departments must have a
workload policy on file.
• Every faculty has a specific workload assigned to them.
It varies from unit to unit and faculty member to faculty
member.
• UD Workload policies can be found at
www.udel.edu/provost/documents.html
• This workload assignment is re-evaluated annually at the
time of faculty appraisals and should be adjusted
according to research activity. Workload policies exist for
all academic departments and your faculty should be
familiar with their workload assignment.
CBA 11.9
12 credit contact hours or 18 teaching contact hours per
week per semester constitutes a 100% workload for the
semester for the academic year. Assignment of a
workload of other credit-contact hours per week or
teaching contact hours per week per semester will be
prorated as a percentage of workload for the semester,
e.g. 9 credit-contact hours per week per semester
constitutes a 75% workload for the semester for the
academic year; 6 credit-contact hours per week per
semester constitutes a 50% workload for the semester
for the academic year; 3 credit-contact hours per week
per semester constitutes a 25% workload for the
semester for the academic year.
Why Certify?
And what if we don’t?
Why do we have effort
certification?
• Effort reporting is a requirement of the Federal
Government. In order to receive Federal
funding (sponsored grants and contracts), UD
must maintain an effort reporting system.
• OMB A-21, J10 Compensation for personal
services:
– “a statement will be signed by the employee, principal
investigator, or responsible official(s) using suitable
means of verification that the work was performed.”
Risk of Non-compliance
Severe penalties and funding
disallowances could result from
inaccurate (False Claims),
incomplete, or untimely effort
reporting.
Who must certify?
Certifying Signature
• Signer must understand what they are
signing
• Business managers cannot sign for entire
departments.
• Secretarial and accounting personnel
should not sign for faculty.
• The signer should be as close as possible
to the work performed.
Certifying Signature
• Principal investigators must review and certify their total
effort on all federal projects for each effort reporting
period.
• The federal regulations allow for a variance of effort up
to 25% of what was proposed without prior approval.
• The federal regulations allow for a variance of only 5% in
the salary allocated as compared to that which the
employee is certifying.
• Effort promised or proposed to a sponsored activity
(even if not budgeted) must be accounted for.
What are we really
certifying?
Proposed and Committed Effort
• Proposed
– Is either sponsor budgeted or otherwise
– Is committed in the justification, budget, C&P or other
documents
• Committed
– expected to be tracked, fulfilled and documented
• Avoid over commitments
– do not exceed one’s full workload.
Effort Reporting Is
Complicated By Cost Sharing
• Cost sharing is the difference between
the effort expended on a project and the
effort that is paid for by the sponsor.
• Cost sharing can be either mandatory or
voluntary.
• Effort committed but NOT funded by a
sponsor is automatically Cost Share!!
Cost Sharing (cont.)
• The same cost sharing dollars can be
used only once
• The source of cost share fund cannot be
other federal funds
• Commitments should be realistic and
money should be available to fund it
Three Types of Cost Sharing
• Committed Cost Sharing—documented
in the notice of grant award from the
sponsor
• Uncommitted Cost Sharing—additional
effort not required by the sponsor
• Cost Sharing due to Salary Limitation—
restrictions enforced by the granting
agency (NIH Salary Cap)
Workload Example
Workload Example
• Dr. Dots has a workload that combines teaching
and research
• Dr. Dots has a 9 month academic year faculty
appointment with a $72K 9 month salary
• Dr. Dots teaches 3 courses in the first semester
and 2 in the second semester
• Each course is 3 credits
Workload Example
Workload
Category
Percentage
Research
(regardless
of funding)
Instruction
60%
Service
10%
30%
• Dr. Dots has agreed to
spend
– 60% of his time (effort)
performing research
related activities,
– 30% of his time providing
instruction through
teaching or advisement of
students and
– 10% of his time providing
service to the public or the
institution.
• The total workload
needs to total 100%.
Faculty Workload
monthly distribution
Month
Teaching
Research
September
.75
.25
October
.75
.25
November
.75
.25
December
.75
.25
January
Summer Month
1.00
February
.5
.5
March
.5
.5
April
.5
.5
May
.5
.5
June
1.0
X
July
1.0
X
August
1.0
X
How much is a month?
Number of Months in
Appointment
% if +3
summer
months
% if +2 summer
months
% if +1 summer
months
9
8%
9%
10%
10
N/A
8%
9%
11
N/A
N/A
8%
12
8% for any month
Workload Calculation
Month
Teaching
Research
% Teaching
% Research
September
.75
.25
6%
2.3%
October
.75
.25
6%
2.3%
November
.75
.25
6%
2.3%
December
.75
.25
6%
2.3%
January
1.00
8.4%
February
.5
.5
4%
4.3%
March
.5
.5
4%
4.4%
April
.5
.5
4%
4.3%
May
.5
.5
4%
4.4%
June
1.0
8.3%
July
1.0
8.4%
August
1.0
8.3%
Totals
5
7
40%
60%
Dr. Dot’s research commitments
Proposal/Grant
Title
Amount
Budgeted
Research
Effort
Committed
Related Months
A—Happy
Widgets
$8,000
8%
1 (Summer
month)
B—Sad Widgets
$0
2%
.25
C—Mad Widgets
$4,000
4%
.5
Total committed
$12,000
14%
1.75
Total
uncommitted
•
46%
So this is good news. We only have 14% committed for Dr. Dots. We still
have 46% left to commit or leave uncommitted as university funded
research effort.
How much effort?
• Minimum effort required
– Committed percent proposed in original
submission
– Only changes authorized by the sponsor can
reduce this commitment
– 1% is a reasonable minimum by OMB
standards
• Maximum
– Depends on workload negotiated with
Department Chair
Case Study
Anecdotal examples
• Budget justification may say 30% of the
academic year and 1.5 summer months.
How much effort is that for this faculty
member?
30% of 9 months is 3 months
3 months is 24%
1.5 summer months is 12%
Total effort for this project for one year is 36%
The Web Process
The UD Web Process
• Web-enabled process effective March 1, 2005
• All certification and adjustments will be handled
electronically
The UD Web Process
• 3 effort periods for academic faculty
– Period 1: Fall semester (September – January 15)
– Period 2: Spring semester (January 16 – May)
– Period 3: Summer research (June – August)
• 2 effort periods for everyone else
– Period 1: September - February
– Period 2: March - August
Effort Certification Web Process
• ‘Delivered’ to the effort administrator 10
days after end of reporting period
• Effort administrator will review and make
necessary changes
• Once reviewed, administrator will route to
the employee for action
• Employee reviews and certifies or returns
to administrator for more changes
Employee View (percent)
Employee Certification View
Employee view
Fall semester, AY2005
Award
Long Title
Direct
Funding
09/01/2007 to 01/15/2008
PI
Cost
Share
Funding
Approval
• TWO (2) “review and certify” are
necessary to complete the process
– Effort admin reviews and certifies accuracy
and forwards to employee
– Employee reviews and certifies
• IF employee is no longer at UD, then effort
admin can select “certify for former
employee”
Employee Annual YTD View
Summary
• We must certify effort for UD to Feds
• Responsible employee closest to the effort must
certify
• Over committed effort can be reduced by talk
with Program Officer (variance of 25% is
allowed)
• Workload is king—refer to this first
More information
UD Effort Policy (6-5)
http://www.udel.edu/ExecVP/policies/research/6-05.html
Effort training
http://www.udel.edu/research/training/efforttraining.html
Effort FAQs
http://www.udel.edu/research/preparing/faq.html#effort
Manager of Effort Certification
effortcert@udel.edu or x4956
Questions?
Contact/Info:
effortcert@udel.edu
831-2136