Frequently Asked Questions

Capital leases essentially represent capital acquisitions and therefore must be handled in a like manner.  Additionally, capital lease payments may not provide an accurate representation of the center’s depreciation for the asset(s).   For this reason service and recharge centers’ capital lease principle payments must be charged to the center’s reserve account (budget) and not to the center’s operating account (budget).  To recover the cost of the asset(s) the center must determine the appropriate annual center depreciation which may be charged to the center’s operating account and recovered through their recharge rates.  Note, external interest associated with capital leases should be charged to centers’ operating accounts and recovered through the recharge rates.

Service/recharge centers who are presently charging capital leases to their operating account may be grandfathered on this change on a case-by-case basis but only for current capital leases.  Future capital leases for these centers must be handled in the above manner.  If your center is one that presently has this arrangement in place please contact Management Accounting and Analysis so that we may assess your specific situation and advise you of actions to be taken. 

In an effort to ensure centers are costing their rates appropriately a variance analysis report reflecting the previous year’s estimated costs to actual costs must be submitted within 45 days after the close of the rate cycle. The report should include an explanation of any material differences, i.e., +\- 10% or more AND +/- $5,000 or more, from the original cost estimate.  If there are any material encumbrances they should also be reflected.

For example, if the estimate for salaries was $30,000 and the variance +$3,500 an explanation would NOT be required as the variance is less than $5,000 even though it is greater than 10%.  Similarly, if the salary estimate was $75,000 and the variance +$5,500, an explanation would NOT be required because the variance is less than 10%.  Only if the variance dollar amount is equal to or greater than $5,000 AND the variance percentage is equal to or greater than 10% will an explanation be required.

A variance report excel template can be found on the MAA website under Forms/Templates.

On occassion a center may be asked by an external customer to complete a W9 form before a payment can be received.  For more information on how to fill out a W9 visit the following link. 

https://f2.washington.edu/fm/tax

Food purchases are unallowable on service and recharge center operating budgets* unless the following exceptions apply:

• The center has a programmatic requirement for food purchases.  In other words the food being purchased must be essential to the operations of the center.  If this is the case, it should be clearly stated in your rate proposal.
• Centers may purchase meals or refreshments for meetings or conferences IF technical information pertaining to the center’s operations is disseminated.  In such cases an agenda and other documentation must be kept on file to prove the content of the meeting/conference.  If the meeting/conference was not approved ahead of time in your proposal, a food approval form will be required.

Visit the following link for the food approval form, details on how to fill it out, and additional information on food purchases. http://f2.washington.edu/fm/food-approval

*Food purchases are allowable on reserve budgets (program type 21 & 23) if the purchase directly benefits the center, however centers must still comply with UW food approval policies.

Current University guidelines allow for the Technology Recharge Fee to be included on approved service and recharge center budgets, see https://www.washington.edu/uwit/services-2/recharge/.  The percentage of the Tech Recharge Fee to the center should not exceed the FTE percentage of the associated employee assigned to the center.  For example, if an employee is assigned 50% to the service/recharge center, the percentage of the Tech Recharge Fee charged to the service/recharge center should not exceed 50% of the total amount assessed to the department.

 The two most appropriate allocation methodologies are:

• Allocate the fee to individual rates based on the same allocation of the related salary
• Allocate the fee to internal center overhead.

Centers should choose the methodology that most accurately reflects how costs reflect.

Encumbrances are not the same as accrued expenses.  Encumbrances can represent a number of things, but are most commonly used to represent an outstanding obligation or commitment.  These figures can be used for planning and or budgeting purposes, but they do not represent actual expenditures. 

For example, when a service contract is agreed upon procurement services will set up a purchase order in the system, the total dollar amount of the service contract will then show up as an encumbrance even though no services has been provided or paid for yet.  As services are received and payments made, the encumbrance is reduced. Encumbrance amounts also represent the open balance amounts of an order.  For more information please visit the encumbrance website, http://f2.washington.edu/fm/gca/encumbrances-0.

An accrued expense occurs when an item or service has been received within a certain period, but the payment for it did not post or was not recognized in that same period.

Encumbrance figures should not be included in the financial reports unless it is known that the encumbrance amount meets the accrued expense definition.

No.  Centers are allowed to submit mid year rate adjustments at any point throughout a center's rate cycle.

Please refer to the following website for information on invoice receivables, https://f2.washington.edu/fm/sfs/ir/intro .  Included on the site is a link to a document that explains in detail the receivables procedures including guidlines and standards for the State of Washington.

The main difference between the two is the size of the center.  A service center is defined as generating $1 million or more in total revenue and/or charging $175K or more to UW federally funded budgets within a fiscal year.  A recharge center is defined as generating less than $1 million in revenue AND charging less than $175K to UW federally funded budgets within a fiscal year.  Service centers are required to send their annual rate proposals and financial reports to MAA as well as their Dean's/VP's Office, whereas recharge centers are only required to send their annual rate proposals and financial reports to their Dean's/VP's Office.  All other policies and guidelines apply to both budget types.

255 Service Rooms will be functionalized using the weighted average of the activities of the rooms they support – an automated calculation performed within WebSpace. Recharge centers will be functionalized based on their billing information – using data available in WebSpace.

They should be listed in each lab occupied during the year, wherever they are doing rotation work for a reasonable length of time (e.g., quarter or pay period).  

Please contact FAHelp@uw.edu for further guidance and assistance.

The lab should be split by amount of recharge and amount of research.  This can be done by allocating % by room based on use of space usage (E.g., # workbenches, # hours/days of week).

The faculty/staff’s time working at a hospital should not be included as part of the % of time reported for the individual when surveying a research lab.  The hospital space is not a part of the F&A Rate calculation for the UW. As a result, any individual who spends time at the hospital or other non-UW facility should not have 100% of time reported in the research lab.  

No, a PI should only be listed as an occupant, when performing work in that space. A PI should not be listed as an occupant if providing management and/or project oversight only.  

No.  This is because an individual may spend time in room(s) not related to research (or part of the Space Survey), which would leave them with a % of total time less than 100% in WebSpace.

Instruction (as part of Instruction & Departmental Research), as receiving course credit for their time and not being paid from a research grant.

UW spaces used for Organized Research (OR) need to allocate related F&A costs, which drives the need for specific site (South Lake Union-SLU, Applied Physics Lab-APL)  and (OFFR) Off Campus Research designations.  These separate ways to capture F&A data are important but sometimes complex.  If you have further questions, please contact FAHelp@uw.edu.

Adjust % of time by room to add up to 100%.  Federal guidance limits a person to 1.0 FTE; the 100% of time aligns to 1.0 FTE

If the Unpaid Volunteers spent any significant amount of time in research rooms, then need to be added as occupants using Add Manually option in WebSpace. The same process applies to undergraduate students, high school students, graduate students, visitors or agency employees.

Instruction 

If a person does not have a UW EID (Employee ID), use the Add Manually option in WebSpace to reflect the individual as an occupant. 

The same way as space occupied by outside persons and paid by external entities or organizations (e.g., external researchers).  If they have an UWID, you will be able to search for their name and add them as an occupant, however, since they are not paid by UW their activity will automatically be defaulted to Other Institutional Activity (OIA).

Visitors

The WebSpace cluster feature allows you to save time by grouping rooms with a single PI and the same list of occupants. This can be used for a suite of labs even if some labs are located on different floors or in different buildings. The step can only be performed once the related rooms are inventoried. More detailed information on clustering can be found in the WebSpace training guide located in the help section of WebSpace.

The space survey is used to determine the Facilities portion (“F”) part of our F&A rate.  Administrative (“A”) related rates are capped by the Federal government at 26%, while the Facilities rates are not.

Recharge/service center space in WebSpace will be automatically surveyed based on the billing information associated with the center. For example, the percentage of the total revenue that is associated with external sales will be applied to Other Institutional Activities. To mark a center as recharge center space within WebSpace, select the recharge box from the edit page during the inventory step and select the Recharge/Service Center from the reason drop down. The associated recharge budget will also need to be entered to calculate billing percentages.

This is only required for those departments participating in the Space Survey:

Space Manager will allow you to assign a person from another department as a room occupant using their EID or name.  

Room type describes the primary use of a room (e.g., classroom, computation dry lab, faculty office)   

https://maps.uw.edu/geosims/room-type-definitions.html 

Room function describes the activity taking place in the space (e.g., instruction, organized research, joint use) 

https://finance.uw.edu/maa/fa-rate-proposal/space-survey/functional-use-definitions 

Each room can have only one room type or primary use.  Each room can have multiple room functions. 

This step only required for those departments participating in the Space Survey.

• For Space Manager, vacant space should have no PI allocation and no occupants listed
• Within WebSpace, the PI should be marked as “Vacant” PI. 

CAP (Capital Architecture + Planning) Account Managers, as noted on this website: https://facilities.uw.edu/planning/account-managers  

Yes, if before 11/30/22 in Space Manager. 

Updates to the space inventory information can be made in WebSpace beginning in January 2023.

Those definitions can be found on these websites: https://finance.uw.edu/maa/primary-use. 

and https://maps.uw.edu/geosims/room-type-definitions.html (along with Excel file download). 

Yes, leased space should be part of this space inventory activity.  This will help ensure accurate inventory records no matter how it is funded. 

The space inventory occurs prior to the functionalization of the space during the space survey. During the inventory portion of the survey, the primary use codes of the space are checked for accuracy to ensure research space is accounted for and assigned to be surveyed. For example, if a space was converted to a research lab, it’s primary use code would need to be updated to reflect this change.

This depends upon how your college decides to handle. For some, the Dean’s office would need to add or remove rooms from a department’s inventory.  For others, you may coordinate with your CAP Account Manager to add/remove space from your department room inventory. Discuss with your department to understand the process expected. 

Shared Space is defined in one of two ways: 

1. Research lab shared by multiple PIs/multiple departments (room types 250, 260, 261, 262, 264) .  Occupants need to be assigned  

2. Service rooms with shared equipment/instrument/cold/freezer/microscope (room type 255).  Occupants do not need to be assigned  

Primary use (room type) codes are important because those related to research will be the primary focus of the upcoming Space Survey and will require functionalization. (Currently planned for January to April 2023).

For all 255 rooms (research service labs):

• There is no need to add PI or occupants
• If there are old occupants in the space already, there is no need to delete them
• As well, it does not matter what % the PI% in Space Manager

For the base year, getting the rooms identified correctly as 255 is the main goal. 

Departments can clean up PI and occupants per their local practices.

Occupants are required for research space.  Specifically primary use/room types: 250 research labs, 261 computational labs, 262 BL2 wet labs and 264 specialized wet labs.  

Occupants do not need to be assigned to service or administrative areas.   

ECC is an off-the-shelf solution. It will be configured to meet UW's needs.

A cutover plan is currently under development. While some details remain unknown, the following key elements are in place: 

• Current state effort reporting will end on 6/30/23, with an abbreviated reporting cycle; however, current state systems will remain in use for a few months after cutover to certify for this cycle.

• Future state effort reporting will begin on 7/1/23, with a new reporting cycle in ECC.

• Leading up to cutover, we will work with users to minimize cross-era changes and recertifications.

We will provide more information, once it is available.

Yes. Among other institutions, the University of Miami and the Kansas University Medical Center use both systems. We are currently engaged with the University of Miami to learn more about their implementation of ECC and Workday Finance.

In ECC, FECs will be referred to as Effort Statements. Faculty and Prinipal Investigators (PIs) will self-certify these statements.

• End-to-End Testing, which is scheduled to begin in November, ensures ECC works within the broader technical landscape and that integrations function as intended.

• User Acceptance Testing, which is scheduled to begin in 2023, ensures ECC meets user needs. We will work with our ECC Champions to perform these tests.

Currently for retention, responsibility falls to units for GCCRs, and Management Accounting and Analysis (MAA) for FECs in eFECS. In ECC, both Project and Effort Statements will be stored electronically, and retention will be managed by MAA in conjunction with the Records Retention Team.

Note: In the future state, units will still be responsible for retaining GCCRs that were created before ECC go-live. The full retention period for these records is 12 years.

ECC will support effort reporting for all Effort and Project Statements and there will be three ECC instances to allow for differences between organizations: UW, UWM (Harborview), and APL.

ECC will have the same look and feel across instances. Users who work across organizations, will need to log into each instance separately.

The situation in which you would need backup documentation is if a previous GCCR has a salary transfer after the fact that will affect it. In addition, you need to have the faculty recertify the GCCR after the salary transfer has posted and you have edited the GCCR to include it. Here is some more information on GCCR changes: Changes to GCCR | Management Accounting & Analysis (uw.edu)

To change an incorrect WUC, contact the Payroll Office at ischelp@uw.edu. Follow the same procedure for PIs who are missing from your GCCRs.

It is most likely because there are no budgets currently assigned to the missing PI. Verify that the budget for which the PI is responsible for certifying has the correct PI EID and PI name in MyFinancial Desktop, Budget Profile.

The Grant and Contract Certification Report (GCCR) is required to be maintained in the home department of the Principal Investigator. Therefore, to determine compliance with the GCCR process, MAA relies on the departmental downloads, i.e. if the GCCR has not been downloaded, it has not been certified. Downloading the GCCR removes the report from the overdue list.

Note, when there is a change in PI, the system will create a GCCR for the new PI. This may result in a duplication of a report for a period already certified by the original PI. In this case there is not need for the new PI to certify again. However downloading the GCCR will remove it from the overdue report.

Please contact Workday to further solve this issue because earn type code is usually related to Workday salary information side. 

First, for budget, please check if the budget is active sponsored budget and includes qualified transactions - non-faculty salaries. For person, please check if the person is non-faculty and has qualified IBS (institutional Base Salary) Components of Institutional Base Salary | Management Accounting & Analysis (uw.edu).

Sometimes, specific budget or person is under different org code or different Principal Investigator. Please try selecting all on drop down selections for Org Major Area Level, Org Dept Level and Org SubDivision Level and/or Principal Investigators.

For postdoc budget/individual missing:

Because the postdoc’s effort will show up on the GCCR if they are paid in a salary/wage object code, but not if they are paid under stipend object code. One possible reason this individual or budget isn’t showing up on the GCCR (they would never show up on a FEC since they aren’t faculty), is that the postdoc was paid under 01-50, 01-90 or 08-02. Postdocs on research awards should be paid in object code 01-40, which are considered wages. Stipends would only be used to pay a postdoc on training or fellowship-type awards.

Changes can only be made to certified cost share by the faculty member recertifying the FEC. To accomplish, this contact GCA via Grant Tracker for requested changes to pledges. The faculty member should not recertify the FEC until the requested changes have been processed and appear in eFECS.  Contact efecs@uw.edu for recertification questions.

Yes, with the following caveat. Regardless of whether the cost sharing is percent effort or dollars, if there is a specific commitment of effort by the PI or other key personnel, and the re-budgeting is caused by or results in a significant reduction (i.e. 25% or more) of that commitment, prior approval from the sponsor for this change needs to be obtained. Additionally, significant adjustments between effort and non-effort categories may imply a scope change. If this is the case, the sponsor must be contacted to approve the change.

Cost shared effort, as well as effort paid directly from the grant, is averaged over the FEC cycle for faculty reporting on both academic and calendar cycles. This may result in a percentage appearing on the FEC that is less than the committed amount.  For example, if the grant was only active for half of the cycle, a 10% percent commitment will appear as 5% on the FEC.  For faculty on an academic cycle, eFECS will identify if the commitment is for spring and upload the full 10% (the un-averaged percent) to the spring quarter in the Cost Share Module.

Yes, the relationship between the amount of effort charged directly to the grant and the amount cost shared is secondary to the PI meeting the combined (total) percent of his/her committed effort.

If the cost share is committed based on percent effort, and necessary approvals have been obtained (e.g., reduction of 25% or more) the reduction need not be prorated between the direct charged and cost shared effort commitment. It is critical however, that the total adjusted commitment be met which could be via direct salary charges only, cost share only or a combination of both. If the cost share is mandatory, i.e., dollar based, specific approval from the sponsor is required unless other sources of cost sharing are permissible and substituted.

First, do not certify the FEC. Make sure all corrections have been made before doing so as eFECS will automatically update the FEC information to incorporate changes processed if it has not been certified thus avoiding the need to recertify. If you do certify your FEC and a correction is subsequently made you will need to recertify it.

Second, contact your FEC coordinator to inform him/her there is a problem with what is reflected on the FEC as it does not reasonably reflect your actual effort. This most commonly results from incorrect salary distributions or an issue related to cost sharing. In these cases a retroactive salary distribution correction and/or cost share adjustment can be made.

While it sometimes can take time to get changes processed and result in the FEC certification being delinquent, it is the better option than to knowingly certify to something incorrect.

An FEC most commonly will need to be recertified in the eFECS system when there is a retroactive change in salary distributions and/or cost share commitments/effort that has a material impact on the percentages previously certified to for sponsored budgets, i.e., the adjustment changes the percentages.  If there are no (or minimal) changes impacting sponsored budgets, a recertification is not necessary.

While we strive to avoid the recertification of FECs as they are frequently reviewed and questioned by auditors, it is critically important that when an error is detected, the FEC be corrected even if it requires it to be recertified.  One common cause of this is late receipt of awards from sponsors.

It is recommended that, in these cases, an advance budget be requested, especially if the anticipated receipt of the award is past the complete by date for the FEC.  Also, while the late certification of an FEC is non-compliant with UW policies, it is a lesser issue than knowingly certifying an incorrect FEC.

As of March 2017, recertifications are processed electronically.  Follow the instructions on MAA website.  Note, the ASTRA role “View and Update Effort Report” is needed to process a recertification online.

There is provision for the Chair, Dean, Director or Division Head to certify on a faculty member’s behalf.  To do this the department Astra authorizer must assign the ASTRA role “Certify Others” to the Chair, Dean, Director or Division Head.  Once this is done they can now enter the name of the faculty they are certifying for in the Search box.

These individuals must have suitable means to confirm the work was completed such as direct supervision or an email from the separated faculty confirming the accuracy of the FEC.

No.  All roles in eFECS are set up and removed by the department's ASTRA authorizer.

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No, FEC's become available for online viewing after payroll transactions for the final pay period in the FEC cycle have posted or approximately 23 days after the end of the cycle. For mid-cycle reporting of cost sharing, use the Interim Cost Share Report process.

This most commonly occurs when there is original pay and a salary transfer on the same budget. Expanding the budget detail will reveal both the positive and the negative salary transactions.

The federal government requires that effort reports reflect 100% of the faculty members' compensated effort. The change to the FEC to reflect 100% alleviates auditing challenges with federal regulations. Faculty whose Average Paid FTE during a reporting cycle does not equal a 1.0 equivalent Workday salary rate will fall into the above scenario. The averaged IBS value ($) associated with the Average Paid FTE, is then represented as 100% of the faculty member's IBS for the FEC cycle.

All effort reporting is transitioning to the new effort reporting system, ECC (Employee Compensation Compliance). To learn more about ECC and details about what is changing, visit the ECC webpage as well as the ECC FAQs.

There are several changes to GCCRs in ECC:

• Name Change: In ECC, Grant and Contract Cerftification Reports (GCCRs) will be referred to as Project Statements.

• Electronic Processing: Currently, GCCRs follow a manual paper process. In ECC, this process will be electronic.

• Record Retention: Currently, units are responsible for retaining GCCRs. In ECC, retention will be managed by MAA in conjunction with the Records Retention Team. Note: In the future state, units will still be responsible for retaining GCCRs that were created before ECC go-live. The full retention period for these records in 12 years.

• Recertifications: Currently, adjustments for GCCRs are made directly on the paper statement (via manual edits) or programmatically on the next statement. In ECC, recertifications for Project Statements will occur in the period of performance. This ensures all records stay together and is a best practice for effort reporting.

First, please check if you can follow the detailed steps of adding cost share: How to Add K Award Cost Share to the FEC | Management Accounting & Analysis (uw.edu)

If budget is not identified as K award, please look up the Grant Contract number using the Budget Profile Report on MyFD. For budgets to be recognized as a K-Award budget, the grant contract number for the specific biennium (currently, 2021), must have a K award recognized 3 characters value, within the substring of the 3rd through 5th characters. K Award budgets - eFECS displays a K award type when the faculty has pay on a budget where the third, fourth and fifth places in the Grant Contract number field in match:    K01,K02,K05, K07, K08,K12, K18, K22, K23, K24,K25, K26, K30, K43, K76, K99, KL2. If this is the reason, GCA (gcahelp@uw.edu) could be contacted to update grant contract number.

If budget is NIH Subaward, because of grant contract number NIH provides, FEC coordinator would need to select “ Short- Term shift” as cost share type instead of “ K-award (K)” on the draw down selection when adding cost share.

The eFECS system utilizes budget profile attributes associated with each budget to determine what FECs and budgets on each FEC are subject to the DHHS salary cap.  Once determined, the salary cap cost sharing is then calculated using a combination of the salary dollars and percent distribution directly charged to the budget subject to the salary cap and the effective salary cap threshold.  It is critical to note that this calculation is based on the assumption the department has adjusted the directly charged salary to the capped amount.

If the non DHHS sponsor applies the DHHS salary cap then eFECS utilizes the same process above.  However, if the non DHHS sponsor charges a unique salary cap amount, i.e., has a different threshold, eFECS does not calculate the amount of the salary cap cost sharing but does place an indicator next to the impacted budget on the FEC to alert the department that they need to make the calculation and manually adjust the salary cap cost sharing prior to the FEC being certified.

The MAA F&A team used Space Manager as of November 30th, 2022.  Department updates through that date will be reflected in WebSpace.

WebSpace is a web-based space survey tool developed by Maximus that will be the system of record for the space survey a part of the 2023 F&A rate proposal.   

WebSpace can be accessed using the following url: https://webspace.maximus.com/uw/ with your UW NetID.  Ensure you requested access to the system and attended the training. 

Each department can have up to 5 individuals with the department administrator role. In addition, rooms can be selected and assigned to anyone with a UW NetID. This can be useful to assign suites of labs to a lab manager or program coordinator who is more familiar with the space.

While it is important that the researcher maintains a good relationship with the Program Officer, communicating changes solely through the Program Officer is not sufficient.

Any decrease in effort of 25% or more by key personnel (as noted in the Notice of Grant Award) must be approved in writing prior to the change by the sponsors' Grants Officer.

An increase in effort greater than 25% for key personnel should also be reviewed to assess whether there has been a change in the scope of work and the impact, if any, on other sponsored agreements.

Any change in the scope of work must also be approved in writing prior to the change by the sponsors' Grants Officer. All requests must be processed through the UW Office of Sponsored Programs in advance of the change.

Normally it is acceptable for the effort commitment to be met over the project budget period and not tied to each FEC cycle. It is common for effort to vary from FEC cycle to FEC cycle provided the PI (or key personnel as designated in the Notice of Grant Award) does not (a) absence him/her self from the project for three consecutive months or more, or (b) reduce effort on the grant (direct and cost shared combined) by 25% or more over the budget period.

A PI can reduce their effort 5%, 10%, etc. without any impact on the award. However, prior approval must be obtained if the reduction falls under a sponsor requirement. For most NIH research (non-K) awards, a change of 25% or more requires prior approval. PCORI also requires approval for a greater than 25% change. There are no repercussions for a less than 25% change in either of those circumstances.

From a strict policy stand point, the terms and conditions of the award continue unless amended, so reducing effort by 25% or more would require sponsor approval.

The PI may, however, request that the sponsor approves eliminating or reducing the cost share during the no-cost extension process. While the University may approve the no-cost extension, the reduction of effort must be granted by the sponsor.

K awards present a unique case as they generally carry the requirement for a 75% commitment of total professional effort.

Consistent with the spirit of the Bayh-Dole Act, reasonable levels of activity related to pursuing intellectual property can be charged to grants.

These activities may include making an invention disclosure, meeting with UW’s tech transfer office (CoMotion) to discuss an invention disclosure, meeting with a patent attorney about a UW invention and/or reviewing internal actions on patent applications.

As with any effort charged to sponsored agreements, effort associated with the pursuit of intellectual property must be directly related to the sponsored project that is being charged. Where more than one award or activity contributed to the development of the intellectual property the effort distribution should be based on proportionate support provided under the awards or other equitable relationship.

The effort must also occur within the award period for it to be eligible for direct charging. These activities should be included within total University effort for effort reporting purposes.

Recertification of the FEC is only required if the level of effort on the sponsored project changes. Documenting the transfer of salaries to a sub budget number is not required as long as it does not change the overall project effort for the respective FEC cycle. This includes salary transfers from a parent budget to a sub budget or between sub budgets within the same project.

It is a federal requirement that all salaries charged either directly to a federally funded sponsored agreement and/or to non-sponsored sources for the fulfillment of a cost-share commitment being met via faculty effort not charged directly to the sponsored agreement, be supported by records that provide assurance that the charges reasonably reflect the work performed.  The UW meets these requirements via the faculty effort certification reports (FECs).

FECs are semi-annual reports designed to meet the federal requirements described above.  Thus, a faculty member will receive, and must complete, an FEC if he or she is paid by the University of Washington and

• Performs effort paid on federal and/or nonfederal sponsored projects; and/or
• Performs cost-sharing on federal and/or nonfederal sponsored projects.

While technically a federal requirement, the UW presently requires this certification for all sponsored agreements regardless of funding source.

The federal government requires that charges to federal awards for salaries and wages be based on records that represent a reasonable approximation of the work performed on those federal awards relative to the total activity for which the University compensates the faculty member. As part of meeting this requirement, faculty review and certify their effort.

Charging and certifying salaries that are not properly supported could lead to audit findings, disallowances, fines, suspension and debarment, as well as other sanctions at the institutional and/or individual level.

The purpose of the FEC is to certify that the compensation (institutional base salary) charged to each sponsored agreement is reasonable in relation to all other compensated UW activities. Thus, faculty completing FECs must take into consideration research, instruction, administration, service and clinical activity (excludes clinical incentive payments). See GIM 35.

Institutional base salary (IBS) is the annual compensation, including A/B salary as it relates to tenured faculty, paid by the University of Washington for an employee’s appointment, whether that individual’s time is spent on research, instruction, administration, service or clinical activity. IBS excludes any income that an individual is permitted to earn outside of duties for the University of Washington.

The components of IBS are base salary (regular salary, summer salary, paid professional leave and salary for retired faculty); administrative supplements (ADS); endowed supplements (ENS); and clinical salary (UW Physicians (UWP) and Children’s University Medical Group (CUMG)).  Note, clinical incentive salaries are excluded from IBS.

A faculty work week is composed of the average number of hours a faculty member normally works during a week. Hours are to be averaged over the effort reporting period. For many faculty members, this number will vary from one week to another; there is not a standard 40-hour work week for faculty.

Example: If, within a six-month cycle, a faculty member worked thirteen 60-hour weeks and thirteen 40-hour weeks, his/her average work week would be 50 hours. Hours are averaged over the six-month effort reporting cycle. 

Faculty are not required to keep track of hours on a daily or even weekly basis. They are, however, expected to estimate, as a percentage of their total compensated (IBS) effort, that what they do on an average per week, regardless of the actual number of hours worked, days of the week or hours of the day, over the reporting period is reasonably reflected on their FEC report. This allows them to certify in good faith that their effort compensated on a sponsored project is reasonable.

Yes, any room currently coded with room type 590 Unassigned, in on-campus leased spaces need to be updated to a more appropriate room type in WebSpace. A list of all room types will be available in WebSpace and can also be downloaded here - https://maps.uw.edu/geosims/room-type-definitions.html. Off-campus leased spaces will not impact the F&A Rate and do not need to be updated in WebSpace. 

If the mail room is not managed by a specific department, the mail room should be assigned to 208020800 Creative Communication.

Room Type 360 Breakroom

Room Type 090 Parking Garage

As part of the WebSpace inventory process, departments will need to review the room type (also referred to as a primary use code) to ensure it reflects the primary use of the space correctly. The assignable square footage (ASF) should also be reviewed for accuracy and updated as needed. Some room types will require all the occupants identified that used the space during Fiscal Year 2023 to serve as the basis for completing the survey.  

110 General Classroom

A space survey is the process of determining what percentage of campus space is used for organized research. This includes determining in which rooms organized research occurs, assigning budget numbers and occupants, and calculating the amount of time spent on major University functions such as organized research and instruction. The results of the space survey are used to help allocate costs within the Facilities and Administrative (F&A) rate development process.

If a faculty member is clearly not being compensated (must be for entire pay periods) by the University then proposal preparation time would be considered volunteer time, i.e., performed on one’s own time. As such, no alternative (non-sponsored) funding needs to be obtained since no UW compensation is being received. However, if partial salary is being paid during the period in question this effort would be considered part of said compensation and a non-sponsored funding source needed.

The FEC process is conducted on a semi-annual schedule for faculty on 9 month appointments. Spring (3/16-6/15) and summer (6/16-9/15) effort is combined into a single FEC (March 16 - September 15). The rate of pay one can receive from a grant for work during the summer portion of this cycle is based on their 9 month academic year salary rate. While summer salary is considered part of institutional base salary, it is generally a unique line/designation in grant proposals.

For example, if the 9 month salary is $3,000 per month for a full-time appointment and there is a commitment of 50% effort for two months during the summer portion of the spring/summer cycle, the rate of pay for those two summer months would be $1,500 per month for 50% effort per month. On the FEC, the summer compensation will be added to the compensation received during the spring quarter for each sponsored budget and for 'Other Salary Sources'. The percent for each budget will then be calculated by dividing the total compensation charged to the budget divided by the total compensation received over the two quarters, i.e., FEC period.

Those definitions can be found on these websites: https://finance.uw.edu/maa/primary-use and https://maps.uw.edu/geosims/room-type-definitions.html (along with Excel file download). 

A faculty member’s appointment is not impacted as a result of being placed on Reduced Responsibility (RR). Rather, it impacts his/her compensated FTE (e.g. salary reduction with proportionate reduction in responsibilities). When a faculty member’s salary has been reduced based on RR status, it is recognized that his or her University responsibilities will be reduced accordingly, giving the faculty member the opportunity to engage, if desired, in uncompensated activities that are outside his or her RR status such as scholarly activity including proposal preparation.

For example, a 1.0 FTE faculty member loses 25% funding and moves into a 75% RR status (65% of the non-RR status is funded from other grant sources; 10% is funded from non-sponsored UW sources for scholarly activities). The remaining 25% unfunded time may be used as uncompensated time on additional scholarly activities while in RR status of 75%.  It is important to note however, that the faculty member’s unit must provide funding for scholarly activity, e.g. proposal preparation, as described in GIM 38 - Funding Support for Institutional Scholarly Activities.

proposal preparation effort must come from non-sponsored funds. Just like full-time faculty, part-time faculty (those with an appointment of less than 1.0) may not volunteer their time for proposal writing or other non-sponsored activities.  Note, part-time is NOT the same as reduced responsibilities (See GIM 38 – Faculty Reduced Responsibility Status Involving External Funding)