UTA Time and Effort Reporting Guideline

In order to meet compliance standards in OMB Circular A-21. "Cost Principles for Educational Institutions - Compensation for Personal Services, " the University of Texas at Arlington must maintain an accurate system for reporting the percentage of time (i.e. effort) that employees devote to federally sponsored projects. Each University department has the primary function to ensure compliance with these federal regulations. If effort is not properly certified, salary changes cannot be made against a sponsored account. Work or the proportion of time spent on any activity and expressed as a percentage of total time is called effort. Total effort of any employee, including faculty, staff and student employees, must equal 100% (+ or - 1 due to rounding). The appointment serves as a basis for an individual's total effort. As an example, if a person has a 75% appointment serves as 100% effort. If a person has a 50% appointment, this 50% appointment serves as 100% effort.

Effort devoted to sponsored projects must be the determining factor for charging the appropriate salaries and wages to sponsored projects for effort not devoted within the University's effort certification period.

Institutional Base Pay is defined as the annual compensation that the applicant organization pays for an employee's appointment, whether that individual's time is spent on research, teaching, patient care, or other activities. Base salary excludes income that an individual may be permitted to earn outside duties to the applicant organization. Base salary not to be increased as a result of replacing institutional salary funds with grant funds.

Base salary is defined for faculty as compensation guaranteed by the tenure code. It is also referred to as the X component for faculty service to the university. Additional compensation paid as an increment, augmentation or lump sum for work as a department head or other duties assigned is considered the Y factor. Together the X and Y factor comprise the base salary paid to a faculty member through the university payroll system. This base salary must not exceed 100%. Therefore, if a faculty member has 100% appointment, which includes teaching and research, then that faculty member may not receive supplemental pay which would raise the 100% appointment to a 125% appointment. The Y factor must be eliminated if the faculty member is no longer serving as department chair.

A supplement above the base salary will not only be allowed if it meets the OMB A-21 definition of supplemental pay and involves intra-university consulting is assumed to be undertaken as a university obligation requiring no compensation in addition to full-time base salary, the principle also applies to faculty members who function as consultants or otherwise contribute to a sponsored agreement conducted be another faculty member of the same institution. A-21 definition states that supplemental pay is permitted "in unusual cases where consultation is across departmental lines or involves a separate or remote operation, and the work performed by the consultant is in addition to his regular departmental load, any charges for such work representing extra compensation above the base salary is allowed provided tat such consulting arrangements are specifically provided for in the agreement or approved in writing by the sponsoring agency."

Personal Effort Reports

Each month the Office of Accounting and Business Services sends a personnel effort report (PER) to the PI of every federally funded project. The PI must verify that all individuals paid by project funds are accurately reflected on the PER and that their individual percent effort accurately reflects their time spent towards the project. If the PI or any of his staff spent effort on the project while being paid from other sources (contributed effort), the PI must complete the contributed effort section of the PER. Any correction of effort for payments made from federal funds need to be made immediately and supported by retroactive appointment forms.

After the PI has made corrections and/or certified the PER, the PER is sent back to OABS