Grant-in-Aid of Research, Artistry and Scholarship Program (GIA)

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Budget Management Information

GENERAL BUDGET INFORMATION

Fund
General Operations & Maintenance (1000), Restricted State Special (1801) and Other Unrestricted Funds (1026) support the Grant-in-Aid program.   The fund will be assigned by the Graduate School.

DeptID
A Grant-in-Aid PeopleSoft String is established by the budget officer in the faculty member’s tenure department, which is the Chart of Accounts (COA) DeptID.  The departmental budget officer receives all financial reports for the Grant-in-Aid and is responsible for grant monitoring and accounting.  Expense documents must be signed with an authorized departmental signature; Graduate School signature is not required.  All document preparation, accounting, and reporting occurs within the department. 

Program
20562 – Program value assigned to the Grant-in-Aid of Research, Artistry and Scholarship.  This is the ONLY program value that can be used.   

Fin EmplID
As financial activity must be tracked, the Employee ID of the Grant-in-Aid award recipient is required as part of the PeopleSoft String.

ACCOUNTING MANAGEMENT OF AWARD

The departmental budget officer establishes the Grant-in-Aid PeopleSoft String in the financial system.   

Expense Budget Lines
The departmental budget officer establishes all approved Final Budget-Only Values, including Revenue Transfer In Value 600202 (used to award funds) and Transfer Out Value 610202 (used to revert unexpended funds at the end of the grant period).  

Fund Transfers
When all required documentation has been received* (see HOLDS section, below), the Graduate School budget officer transfers funds to the faculty member’s DeptID via Journal Entry.  FUND TRANSFERS INTO OR OUT OF GRANT-IN-AID AWARDS BY ANYONE OTHER THAN THE GRADUATE SCHOOL BUDGET OFFICER IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED.

*HOLDS: Human/Animal Subjects or Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) Training:
The Graduate School transfers funds for Grant-in-Aid awards pending approval for the use of human or animal subjects, if applicable. In addition, funding will be held if the PI has not completed all required RCR Training.  Funds will not be transferred until:

• a copy of final RSPP approval is received by the Graduate School (see Research Subjects' Protection Program (RSPP) at http://www.research.umn.edu/subjects/ for additional information,) and/or
• the PI has completed all required Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training, as verified in the online training database. PIs may check their current status, register, and obtain additional information at http://www.research.umn.edu/first/, and/or
• contingencies have been satisfied.

Therefore, expenses may not be incurred until all approvals are on file at the Graduate School.  If applicable, an addendum regarding incomplete requirements is included with the Grant-in-Aid award letter.

Approved Budget
An approved budget is enclosed with each Grant-in-Aid award letter.  The faculty member and their budget officer are responsible for expending the award as approved.  Graduate School oversight of these funds is retrospective; the Graduate School monitors grant activity quarterly to ensure that expenses incurred are reasonably consistent with the approved budget.  The faculty member and his/her area budget officer are responsible for the removal of any over-expenditures or unauthorized expenditures.

Grant Period
Grant-in-Aid projects must be completed within the one and one-half year grant period.  Current grant periods are January 1, 2008 – June 30, 2009 (for Fall 2007 awards) and July 1, 2008 – January 15, 2010 (for Spring 2008 awards).  Expenditures must be charged within the dates of the grant period.  Requests for no-cost extensions must be submitted at least 30 days prior to the end date of the grant.  Late requests will not be considered. The request must include: Proposal number, PeopleSoft String number, justification for the request in terms of the overall goals and objectives of the original proposal as reviewed and approved by the faculty peer review committee, and a revised timeline.  PLEASE NOTE that extending the term of an award may affect future eligibility.  Send requests to: facgrant@umn.edu, attention Myrna Smith, Director of Faculty Research and Graduate Fellowships.  Typically, requests are reviewed and a decision distributed via e-mail within a week.

Effort Reporting
If personnel supported by a Grant-in-Aid are not supported by sponsored funds, effort certification is not required.  If, however, personnel supported by a Grant-in-Aid are also supported by sponsored funds, effort on the Grant-in-Aid must be reported. 

Graduate Research Assistant (RA) Salary and Fringe
The Grant-in-Aid program uses a standard allotment figure (salary and fringe combined), based on a 50% time, 2-semester appointment, to calculate the RA component of awards.  Personnel budgets that include other terms and percentages of appointment are re-calculated and awarded using this standard allotment. The standard salary allotment is above the minimum of the salary range for a graduate research assistant, and the fringe is estimated at the maximum amount required.  The faculty member may allocate the total amount to different RAs at different percentages of time and term, as necessary.  While departmental policies regarding RA pay rates may vary from those used by the Graduate School, please note that the faculty member must pay his/her RA no less than the standard rate of the Grant-in-Aid program.    Additional information on graduate research assistant appointments may be referenced at: http://www.umn.edu/ohr/gao/  

Please note that the Graduate School provides no augmentations for annual salary or fringe increases.  If a graduate RA will be employed past June 30 of any given year, or if the standard allotment is not sufficient to support the student at the pay level desired, the grant must be supplemented by other funding sources or the term of support shortened to provide sufficient funds.  If excess funds are allocated for salary and/or fringe expenses, the excess allotment may be used to extend the term or percentage of the appointment. 

Please note that the Grant-in-Aid award does not cover fringe benefit charges for Social Security and Medicare.  The current (FY2009) formula for graduate student tuition/fringe benefits is $13.32 per hour for tuition + 14.46% of gross salary for health insurance.  This does not include the Social Security and Medicare fringe components (totaling 7.44% of gross salary) charged for graduate research assistants who do not meet minimum credit hour requirements (i.e., are registered for fewer than three credits, or less than one credit for advanced master’s and Ph.D. candidates).  Should the graduate research assistant fall into this category, another source of funding must provide the additional 7.44% fringe charge, the term of support must be reduced, or the rate of support must be reduced in order to provide the additional 7.44%.  A thorough description of graduate and professional student assistant information can be found at: http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/gae/index.html

Salary and fringe expenses may be transferred to the GIA PeopleSoft String using a Payroll Journal Voucher/Historical Salary Adjustment entry (HSA,) provided the original expense is within the grant period.

Undergraduate Research Assistants
Undergraduate students may be employed on Grant-in-Aid accounts as undergraduate research assistants.  Other student classifications (lab assistant, etc.) and non-academic short term employment (temp casual) appointments are typically not appropriate unless specifically justified in the proposal and included in the approved budget.  Contact Human Resources or your departmental HR officer for procedures on hiring undergraduate research assistants.

Reallocation
If necessitated by the nature of the project, an investigator is allowed to reallocate up to 25% of the amount originally awarded for a given expense category (Account Value) to another approved category (for instance, from equipment to supplies, from supplies to travel, etc.) without obtaining permission from the Graduate School.  Reallocation between Account Values in excess of this allowance requires advance approval from the Graduate School. 

Re-budgeting
Should the faculty member find it necessary to re-budget the grant beyond the 25% reallocation allowance, a written or e-mail request must be submitted to the Graduate School at 420 Johnston Hall or facgrant@umn.edu.  The following must be included:  Proposal number, PeopleSoft String number, description of new budget item (or budget item in need of more funding), description of the existing approved budget item from which funding should be taken, dollar amount, and justification for the request in terms of the overall goals and objectives of the original proposal as reviewed and approved by the faculty peer review committee.  Typically, these requests are reviewed within the Graduate School and decisions distributed via e-mail within two weeks.

Additional Final Budget-Only Account Values, if required, will be authorized by the Graduate School, and may be established by the departmental budget officer.  This requirement ensures that expenses are consistent with the overall goals and objectives of the proposed research project as reviewed and approved by the faculty peer review committee.

Travel
The total allotment in travel may be reallocated within the expense line without obtaining re-budgeting permission.  Similarly, if multiple trips are approved, the total travel allotment can be reallocated among the trips as necessary.  The approved per diem for foreign travel is based on the U.S. State Department per diem allowances, or the faculty member’s lower estimate at the time the proposal was submitted.   Per diem and other travel information can be found at http://travel.umn.edu

Other Approved Expenses

Approved supplies, services, equipment, and computers are purchased following the department’s standard purchasing procedures and policies.  Travel expenses and reimbursements are also processed by department’s budget office.  Please do not send copies of these documents to the Graduate School.  Expenses may be transferred to the Grant-in-Aid using transfer/expense redistribution journal entry, provided the original expense was incurred within the grant period.

Prohibited Expenditures  

• faculty or visiting faculty salary support; regular full-time civil service salary support (except Cat. 7)
• support for personnel to edit or index publication material, or to word process manuscripts or proposals
• computer time charges for U of M computer use; U of M computer time application fee; charges to connect to a network
• computer equipment that was not included in the final, approved project budget
• books, subscriptions, reprints, publication costs
• travel to or from sabbatical and single semester leave sites
• travel expenses associated with professional meetings, conferences, and short courses
• small, general-purpose items, furniture, or maintenance contracts
• utilities (e.g., phone lines)

 Fiscal Year-End
The funding period of a Grant-in-Aid always crosses one fiscal year-end (June 30,) and awards beginning on January 1 also end on June 30 (one and one-half years later.)  If the project will not be fully expended by June 30, the DeptID budget officer should ensure that the approved expense budget lines remain on-line during budget prep so the account is carried over to the new fiscal year.  However, if the grant will be fully expended by June 30, and no further activity is anticipated during the new fiscal year, the DeptID budget officer should submit a PeopleSoft String deletion request for February’s deletion deadline, and deactivate or delete all expense budget lines during budget prep.

End of the Grant Period

Ending Date:
Grants-in-Aid awarded on July 1 end on January 15, one and one-half years from the start date.  Grants-in-Aid awarded on January 1 end on June 30, one and one-half years from the start date.  No further expenses should be charged after the end date of the grant; although grants remain active through the end of the month so outstanding invoices can be paid.  All encumbrances must be cleared by either June 30 or January 31, depending on the grant period.  Should there be any expense activity after January 31, the grant will appear on the department’s budget prep material and the DeptID budget officer should delete all budget lines and submit for deletion the following fiscal year. Final Budget-Only Account Values for grants ending on June 30 should not be established during budget prep. Departmental budget officers should deactivate all Final Budget-Only Account Values and process Deletion requests for these grants.

Account Balance:
The Graduate School reverts unexpended (outstanding invoices must be paid by the end date) funds based on the January 31 or June 30 on-line balance and marks the account for deletion so the account will not appear on the area's budget prep material for the next fiscal year. If the account is in deficit, expenses must be transferred to another source of funding via expense transfer/redistribution journal entry. Note that journal entry fund transfers by departmental budget officers are strictly prohibited on these grants and cannot be used to remove positive balances or cover deficits at year-end.

View: RFP, Funding Categories, Evaluation Criteria, Eligibility Requirements, Exemplary Proposals, Application, FAQs, Most Recent Awards