Processing Summer Salary Payments Charged to Grants and Contracts
It's time to process summer salary payments for faculty who are working on grants and contracts during the summer quarter. The information in this memo is intended to assist you in calculating and processing payments that will be charged to sponsored projects.
Percentage of Effort - The actual amount paid is based on the percentage of effort expended by the faculty member during the summer quarter (June 6 through August 19). A faculty member who expends 100% effort may earn 26.3% of his/her 9.5-month salary for the 2010-11 academic year. When a faculty member works less than 100% during the summer quarter, the amount he/she is entitled to earn will be adjusted proportionately.
100% Effort - The payment of summer salary obligates the faculty member to provide the proposed percentage of effort working on the sponsored project for the full period for which compensation is paid. For example, a faculty member who requests summer salary for 100% effort on sponsored project activities for all 2.5 months of the summer must forego vacation entirely during the 2.5 month summer period.
Federal Awards Only - The federal government has become increasingly stringent enforcing requirements regarding summer salary for faculty working on federally sponsored projects. Specifically, if a faculty member's salary is charged 100% to a federal award(s), federal regulations require that 100% of the faculty member’s time/effort be spent only on the activities covered by the grant(s). This means they must forego vacation, teaching, administrative work, proposal preparation, and business or conference travel except when it is exclusively related to grant-funded activities.
NEW - RIT faculty charging 100% effort to federal awards only for the entire 2.5 months will be required to complete a Plan of Work Summer of 2011 form. This form will provide a summary of the planned activities related to each federal award and document his/her understanding of the regulatory requirements when charging 100% effort to federal awards for the entire summer quarter. The form will be reviewed and approved by the faculty member’s department chair and dean to assure that, if other activities required of the faculty member reduce the available effort that would be devoted to sponsored activities, he/she will reduce proportionally the percentage of effort charged to federal source(s) of funds. Salary support for teaching, RIT administration, service, new or competing proposal preparation and institutional governance must come from University funds unless they are specifically approved activities of a sponsored project.
National Science Foundation Salary Policy - NSF limits salary compensation for senior project personnel to no more than two months of regular salary in one year, including salary compensation received from all NSF-funded grants. When a faculty member expends 100% summer effort on an NSF-funded award(s) only, the maximum amount of summer salary he/she is eligible to receive is limited to 21.05% of his/her 9.5 month salary for the 2010-11 academic year.
Summer Salary Payments - Summer salary is paid during each pay period over the time span that the employee actually works. Payments for faculty who work on summer contracts cannot be paid in a lump sum, nor can they be made in advance of the work actually being performed. For faculty working the entire summer quarter, the total summer salary will be paid over six (6) pay periods beginning June 15th and ending August 31st.
Online Payment Processing -Summer salary payments will be processed online using the RIT Employee/Adjunct Payment Entry in Oracle. Instructions from Human Resources for inputting summer salary payments online can be found at http://finweb.rit.edu/customersupport/docs/summersalinstructions.pdf.
To assist you with the calculations of summer salary payments, the SPA team created the SPA 2011 Summer Salary Charged to Grants and Contracts Worksheet/EAF.
Processing Summer Salary Payments
Here are some additional points for you to keep in mind as you prepare summer salary payments:
- Choose the appropriate version of the SPA 2011 Summer Salary Charged to Grants and Contracts Worksheet/EAF based on the period for the effort. There are two worksheets available: one to process payments for one month only (June, July, or August) and a second version to cover effort throughout the summer quarter - June 6 to August 19. The worksheets will automatically calculate the payment amount based on the faculty member’s salary, the percentage of effort, and the period of time the work will be performed.
- Summer salary is charged to object code 70550: Faculty Summer Salaries and assessed the part-time benefits rate.
- The Principal Investigator (PI) must approve all salary charges to his/her grant or contract. The RIT Employee/Adjunct Payment Entry System will route payment requests to the appropriate PI(s) and SPA rep for approval.
- Wages paid for summer contracts are included in the employee's regular pay check.
- Individuals on 12-month contracts are not eligible to be paid additional earnings through a summer contract.
- If you and your SPA rep determine that a paper SPA 2011 Summer Salary Charged to Grants and Contracts Worksheet/EAF is needed (e.g. to process late payments), please collect principal investigator (s) signatures on the worksheet, indicate preparer’s name and extension, and forward to SPA for approval. SPA will forward to HR for processing.
Please process Summer Salary payments for externally sponsored projects by Friday, May 20, 2011. This will ensure that summer salary payments are included in the faculty member's June 15th pay (for those employees who are working during June).
Since faculty members who work on sponsored projects commit to a range of effort over the summer quarter, examples to assist you in calculating the summer salary amounts, the general ledger accounts, and the payment period are available at the Sponsored Programs Accounting website:RIT - Controller : SPA : Summer Salary Payment Examples.
If you have any questions about this information or about how to calculate and/or process Summer Salary payments, please contact your SPA representative. Refer to the SPA web page for contact information: http://finweb.rit.edu/controller/sponsored/assignments.html.
