California State University, Bakersfield
*** GRaSP ***
Implemented: 01/11/08; Revised: 08/08/12
When a faculty member requests release time for a project, it is the Academic School’s responsibility to confirm that funding is available as well as to process billing for reimbursement from the Project, so the School should maintain a record of the Project Chartfield string for billing purposes. Before scheduling project-related release time to faculty, the school should obtain a copy from the Primary Investigator of the approved project budget indicating funding availability and then confirm with GRaSP that the funding is in place and for what time period the funding is available
In accordance with Federal regulations, it is CSUB policy that release/reimbursed time Billing Requests be processed at the beginning of each quarter, including summer. Since faculty assignments are scheduled by the School, it is the
School’s responsibility to initiate requests for reimbursement. It is critical that the transactions occur quarterly and within the time frame of the award, as funding for awards are cut off by sponsors on specific dates (often different from our fiscal and academic years). If the funding period has ended, billing requests will not be approved, and the School will not receive reimbursement.
Below are the procedures (as established by GRaSP in coordination with Fiscal Services in July 2012) for how
Schools are to prepare Billing Requests in order to receive credit for faculty release time or faculty cost reimbursement. Note: Faculty and staff whose departments receive reimbursed time for a Project must complete a Time and Effort Certification Report; see the GRaSP website for instructions.
See below for a sample of the Billing Request Form (BR). Separate BRs should be prepared for salary and fringe reimbursements whenever possible; this allows for greater detail which is often necessary on invoices and reports to sponsors. Signatures of both the Primary Investigator/Program Director of the Project and the School Dean are required. The completed BR with backup documentation is forwarded to GRaSP for approval. A copy of these instructions and a link to a blank BR are located in the Policies and Procedures page of the GRaSP website http://www.csub.edu/grasp/pp.shtml
(the blank form is also available in the BAS Forms webpage).
The account codes to be used for both the charge to the project and the credit to the department are:
601892 “Release Time Offset” - This code is to be used for salary and/or fringe.
603890 “Benefits Offset” – This code is to be used for fringe benefits only.
A copy of the project budget is required and must be attached to the BR (this may be obtained from the project
Primary Investigator or GRaSP). It is recommended that one BR be prepared for each faculty member for each project; however, when a single BR is used to charge for multiple employees on a project, an Excel worksheet that provides detail of the charges is to be prepared and attached.
The following are two suggestions for other supporting documentation that can be attached to the BR, but which are not required for reimbursement: (a) Some projects (especially those with several faculty buybacks in their budgets) type up agreements with the School specifying the faculty name, release time amount, and WTUs. Schools might want to standardize this procedure to use with other projects/programs when negotiating for release/reimbursed time.
(b) Available in the Policies and Procedures page of the GRaSP website is a Release Time Template. This form has been used in the past by Schools to calculate cost and reimbursement to the School and might be helpful to the
School in tracking release time commitments. d:\726876907.doc

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