EFFORT REPORTING/FACET FACULTY OVERVIEW

1. EFFORT REPORTING/FACET FACULTY OVERVIEW

2. Regulatory Basis • Satisfy Federal requirements (OMB Circular A-21, J. 10.) • Required to maintain systems and procedures documenting the distribution of activity, and associated payroll charges, to each individual sponsored project • Required to demonstrate compliance with effort commitments made to sponsors • Satisfy State of Florida 12-hour law (s. 1012.945)

3. Compliance Audits • Increasing Federal scrutiny, resulting in significant fines and/or audit findings for several institutions  • NSF 2010 Audit Plan: “Continuing series of audits to examine major research universities’ controls over and compliance with federal time and effort accounting and reporting requirements.” • Institutions are expected to have clear policies and processes, and adequate training for all employees

4. Risks of Non-Compliance • Impact to the Institution • Susceptible to False Claims Act allegations • Pay fines • Subject to loss of future Federal funding • Adverse publicity

5. Risks of Non-Compliance • Impact to the Individual • Civil and/or criminal penalties (fines and imprisonment) • Debarment from participating in Federally-funded programs

6. Audit Sanctions • Northwestern University – $5.5M • Thomas Jefferson University – $2.6M • University of Chicago – University, $250K • PI accused of the impropriety, $400K • University of South Florida – $4.4M

7. What is Effort? • Effort is the amount of time spent on a particular activity. • An exempt employee’s effort is expressed as 100% of the total amount of time spent on University compensated activities, regardless of the actual number of hours expended on those activities.

8. Compensated Activities Examples of the common University compensated activities: Compensation for outside activities, such as consulting or volunteer work, is not included.

9. Why Must Effort be Certified? • Required to document the distribution of activity to individual projects • Required to document associated payroll charges • Salary charged must be reasonable in relation to the effort devoted to the project

10. Who Must Report Effort? • Any Instructor of Record on a course • Any employee paid on a sponsored project • Any employee working on a sponsored project • Any employee with a commitment on a sponsored project

11. FSU Effort Reporting System Faculty Assignments Commitment and EffortCertification T racking

12. Responsibility Overview • Positions with responsibilities for effort management and reporting compliance: • Employees who work on a sponsored project or teach a course • Department FACET Rep • Principal Investigators • Deans/Directors/Chairs

13. Employee Responsibilities • Certify amount of effort on Instruction/Service activities, if applicable • Employees who work on sponsored project(s), whether or not their salary is charged to it, are responsible for: • Estimating and meeting effort commitments on sponsored projects • Communicating any significant changes of effort to Sponsored Research Services, in advance of change • Allocating effort to the project on their effort report • Certifying their effort report

14. FACET Rep Responsibilities • Working with PI’s and departmental HR reps to ensure committed effort on sponsored projects is integrated into the salary distributions. • Working with departmental HR reps to ensure salary and wage distribution changes that affect an effort report are processed in a timely manner. • Understanding the various messages, warnings, or errors on effort reports, and understanding the appropriate means of resolving the errors. • Ensuring that effort certification reports are certified within the University’s time line.

15. PI Responsibilities • Managing project effort commitments to ensure compliance with the sponsor's requirements. • Ensuring that all effort and related salary/wage charges on each of their sponsored projects are reasonable in relation to work performed

16.   Chair Responsibilities • Ensuring committed effort on sponsored projects are integrated in the faculty work plans and salary distributions. • Ensuring effort certification reports are reviewed, revised (if needed), and certified within the University’s time line.

17. FACET Effort Certification Rick Burnette Director Institutional Research

18. What Has Changed? • Search Lite – Based on Roles • Department Search (multi-rows) • Retaining Last Record Information • Saving Searches • Categories – Activity Descriptions • Terminations

19. Search Lite For non-FACET representatives, just hit <Search>, or uncheck box to see all your reports

20. Detailed Search • Detailed Search is what FACET representatives will see • We were asked to add Employee Department to allow for searches by department like “All Level 3 with Instruction in Department X”

21. Managing Search • Search retains all the items in blue and last Employee ID when you return to search from a certification form • You can eliminate duplicate rows by entering your Employee Dept and Saving your Search Criteria • You will have to pay attention to Exempt vs. Non-exempt and Standard vs. Non-Standard.

22. Category Descriptions • You will need to drill down to this level on the main Certification screen to enter effort in categories that will eventually match the AOR categories. • It is important to know the differences in these categories as they should affect how AORs are done and effort is certified. • The definitions are from the BOG • Pay particular attention to Academic Support, Administrative Role, and Other Dept Admin. • Also look at Admin Committees and University Governance

23. Category Description Details Note: your browser must allow pop-up windows

24. What Has Changed? • Search Lite – Based on Roles • Department Search (multi-rows) • Retaining Last Record Information • Saving Searches • Categories – Activity Descriptions • Terminations – FACET available for 18 months

25. Effort/Activity Categories OLD NEW Sponsored Activities

26. AOR & Effort Certification AOR CERT

27. AOR Details within Categories

28. Preparing for Spring • Most FACET Effort Reporting problems are the product of bad data from one of the following: • Course data from CSM (Course Schedule Master File) • Commitments • Payroll • Job records management and appointments • We need a priori fixes by departments

29. CSM Issues • Departments should be auditing Spring now. • No instructor on course • Payroll/funding errors – especially with changing to Stimulus and Carry Forward funding • Instructional Contact Hours over 30 for person Reports are posted on the IR website at http://ir.fsu.edu

30. Commitment Issues • Over 100% commitment • Large commitments with little pay and small or zero commitments with a lot of pay • Work with your departmental FACET representative who will work with Sponsored Research and Institutional Research • Don’t certify if there are errors – fix them

31. Payroll and Job Records • Fix erroneous job records prior to certifying • Work with IR on Courtesy Appointments – to make sure they are necessary and correct • Consult with your FACET Representative if you suspect there are errors in your job, supervision, etc.

32. Other Reminders • Institutional Research (IR) is the initial point of contact for FACET Representatives for general questions – FACET@fsu.edu • FACET Representatives should be the initial point of contact for employees • IR has changed the automatic messages • We should be on a consistent schedule now

33. Questions? Remember, all FACET reports for Fall 2010 that do not have errors should be at Level 4 by the end of the day tomorrow. (Friday, March 4, 2011)

34. Effort commitments

35. Effort Commitment • The quantified* effort for named personnel that is specified in the proposal or award, whether to be direct charged or cost shared. *Person months, academic year, summer semester, percent of effort, computed based on the dollar amount budgeted, etc.

36. Minimum/Maximum Commitments • According to OMB Memo M-01-06: “…most Federally-funded research programs should have some level of committed faculty (or senior researchers) effort, paid or unpaid by the Federal government.” • Certain types of awards require specific minimum effort commitments (e.g., NIH K Award @ 75%). • Some exceptions to the minimum effort requirements: equipment grants, doctoral dissertation awards, and student augmentation awards. • > 0% over the life of the award • Total commitments for an employee cannot exceed 100%, for any one reporting period (semester).

37. Key Personnel • Only commitments of Key Personnel are tracked in FACET. • Definition • FSU will use the sponsor’s definition of Key Personnel, if one exists. • If no sponsor definition exists, FSU will define Key Personnel as the PI and all Co-PI’s identified in the proposal/award. • PI’s are encouraged to limit the number of key personnel identified in the proposal. • PI’s are encouraged to limit effort commitments that are not paid for by sponsor.

38. Proposal Commitments Effort commitments may be found in: • Budget Forms • Budget Justification • Current and Pending Support • Available Resources Section • Anywhere in the proposal or award

39. NSF Budget Form

40. NSF Budget Justification

41. NIH Budget Form

42. NIH Budget Justification

43. NIH Key Personnel

44. Commitment Entry in FACET • Commitments are entered: • Only for Key Personnel • When new awards are received • When an award amendment is received (e.g., continuations, supplements, extensions) • For only the period covered by the funding obligation • On a semester basis; prorated across entire project period, unless otherwise specified in proposal/award • Effort commitments in a pending proposal are not entered. • Commitments for projects existing prior to July 2009 may not yet be in FACET.

45. Commitment Adjustments • Overall commitment may be adjusted due to: • Increase or reduction in funding and/or period of performance • Changes in scope of work • Voluntary reduction of effort at PI’s discretion if allowed by terms of the award [FACET would not be adjusted for a voluntary increase in overall commitment.] • As long as the Overall commitment is met, commitments allocated to individual periods may be moved to future periods depending on when the employee plans to do the actual work and availability of time.

46. No-Cost Extension Period • Key personnel expected to maintain the same level of effort committed for the original period of performance, unless otherwise approved by the sponsor. • The request for a no-cost extension should specify any revised effort commitments for key personnel. • Employees are still required to certify actual effort during the no-cost extension period, regardless of whether sponsor-paid or cost shared.

47. References • OMB Circular A-21 • http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars_a021_2004/ • FSU Effort Commitment Policy • http://www.research.fsu.edu/contractsgrants/documents/effcomm.pdf • Effort Commitments During No-Cost Extension Periods • http://www.research.fsu.edu/contractsgrants/documents/effort_nocost.pdf • Effort Commitment Data Entry in FACET • http://www.research.fsu.edu/contractsgrants/documents/effentry.pdf • FSU Cost Sharing Policy • http://www.research.fsu.edu/contractsgrants/costsharing.html • FSU Campus Cost Sharing Procedures • http://www.research.fsu.edu/contractsgrants/documents/csprocedures.pdf

48. Effort Certification

49. Effort Entry Considerations • Planned activities for academic term = AOR • Activities performed for academic term = Effort Certification • Department process • FACET rep entry • Employee/Knowledgeable Person entry • Departmental Research Effort • SRAD/PI Support (Fund 550) • Projects will not display on Enter Effort page • FSU Foundation (Fund 547) • Projects will not display on Enter Effort page

50. Research Compliance Considerations • No new compliance requirements imposed with the introduction of FACET • Compliance with Effort Commitments • NSF 2 Months Rule • Agency Salary Caps • Grant Funding of Courses • Minimum Effort