Greetings Colleagues,
The March MRAM presentation materials and recording are available on the March MRAM meeting page. The Q&A received during the meeting are included for your review.
COVID-19 Q&A
Q: I am assuming that the accelerated approval via OSP will include Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) and Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) prior to approval.
A: OSP’s acceleration/prioritization of COVID-19 related items does not negate the need for prior compliance approvals. Should a matter arise where we need to explore exceptions, those would be discussed with the appropriate office.
Q: How does a traveler pay back the UW if they receive a refund from the airline but submitted the ER and received the funds (now have double reimbursement)
A: The traveler needs to refund the amount of the reimbursement to the budget where the airfare was purchased from. Then the refund from the airline is applied as a credit to that same budget. In this way, the expense is being added back onto the budget (by the traveler’s refund) and then the expense is again being removed from the budget (by application of the airline refund).
Q: Is there any hope that federal sponsors may adjust their guidelines to allow for expenses of canceled NON-refundable airfare? Or is that extremely unlikely to ever change even with the COVID-19 situation?
A: We will let you know on that webpage if the federal government issues an exception to the airfare regulation. This is now an FAQ on the PAFC COVID-19 Travel webpage.
Q: What should we do if a traveler receives a personal credit from an airline, rather than a refund?
A: The cost of the airfare cannot be charged to the Sponsored Award. This is because there is no assurance that the airline credit will be used for travel for the same Award and for the same purpose. Also, there is a chance that the travel may never be rescheduled during the life of the Award. The cost of this ticket cannot be charged to a Sponsored Award. This is now an FAQ on the PAFC COVID-19 Travel webpage.
Sponsored Program or Service Activity Q&A
Q: Are the considerations for Service Activities mentioned in Fuchi Obioha's presentation published somewhere on a website?
A: The information has not been published. They are working on building a webpage for Business Support Services and will share the link once available.