Cost Sharing: A Deeper Dive

Because much of the cost sharing activity we deal with involves faculty time & effort, we're staying with that as the focus, so let's lay some groundwork.

Faculty are typically paid as instructors across the 9-month academic calandar, September though May of each year.

• They are considered free agents during the summer months of June, July and August.
  And as such, they have the option of pursuing additional university-based employment, such as summer teaching gigs, or non-teaching research activities.
   
• During the 9 month academic year, a faculty member has 3 main components to their employment:
   
  • Teaching & Instruction-Specific Duties 
  • Service, such as Committee Work, Scholarship & Mentoring
  • Research Activity (Typically Unsponsored)

 

Faculty are paid across the 9-month academic year as part of an instructional (teaching) budget. Each college has its own instructional budget that they receive from the university. Instructional funds are distributed in what we call 14 accounts, which are also known as appropriated funds. These funds are given to us by the State of Texas via an act passed by the Texas Legislature every 2 years. These funds are what make us a public and state institution and represent about 10% of the total university operating budget.

When faculty submit proposals to sponsors and get grants and awards for conducting research, often, the budgets for their sponsored projects include salary and corresponding fringe benefits for the faculty member's effort as the Principal Investigator on the project. The salary typically occurs in the summer, when the faculty member has more time to devote to the research of specific awards. 

Sometimes, there are circumstances that keep a faculty member from charging some or any portion of their time during the summer semester to a sponsored award. Sometimes this is known in advance and anticipated at the proposal stage, sometimes it occurs during the project due to unplanned circumstances.

Some of the more common reasons:

• Faculty member's summer effort/time is already fully committed to other projects
• Sponsor of funds doesn't allow PI to charge their time and corresponding salary to the award
• A sponsor may require faculty to secure other funds to cover some or all of their time/salary
• Faculty member doesn't plan to devote time to a project specifically during the summer
• Faculty member is trying to keep project costs low by not charging their salary to the award
   

What do all of those scenarios have in common?

That the faculty member will spend some portion of their time/effort working on the research goals of a sponsored project without getting paid by that sponsor. Put another way: The sponsor is getting free labor.

So who is paying the faculty member for the time they spend on the sponsored project? 

Attention, Everyone... Cost Sharing has Just Entered the Building! 

With very rare exceptions, Principal Investigators are required by UT to commit at least 1% of their time on each sponsored award they are in charge of. This assumes that the level of effort isn't already fleshed out in the budget.

To be very clear: it's 1% of their time ---not 1% of their pay. And without a contractual obligation specifying level of effort on sponsored awards, UT can't obligate a faculty member to commit effort during summer months.

So that leaves... the academic year.

• The fact that PIs are responsible for the research on their projects across the entire period of performance (usually 12-months/year, not just in the summer) means they are most likely spending at least 1% of their time on their sponsored awards, but in all likelihood, it's more than that.
   
  • For the folks in the back... to be clear, faculty conduct research during their academic year as part of their expected duties.
  • The type of research they engage in is probably related to the research outlined in their sponsored awards. Of course not always, but mostly. Their specialty is usually how they land the gig in the first place.
  • So it's a safe bet that any faculty member with sponsored research projects is probably spending a good chunk of their academic year on the research outlined in those awards.
    • Is this an a$$umption?
      Why, yes. Yes, it is.
      But it's a good one.
      Pull up a chair and change our minds...
       

But 1%? So what! Don't waste my time!

Nah, we're not belaboring the point over 1%.
We're laying the foundation for why it gets a little tricky. Let's keep going.

What does all this have to do with the tracking business?

NOW we're getting to it...

• Documented and/or mandatory cost share as required by a sponsor*
• Cost share that exceeds the amount typically allowable during the academic year
• Openly declared cost share on a sponsored research project
  • Whether mandatory* or voluntarily committed
     

When there's a declared, required and/or significant amount of voluntarily committed cost share happening on a sponsored award, we gotta track it, report it, and if possible, run away screaming from it.

So, what's a significant amount?

Whatever your college says is a significant amount.

Okay, what does CoLA say is a significant amount?

Whatever OSP says is a significant amount.

And OSP says?

Whatever your college says. Hey!
Ever feel like you're just going around in circles? 

OSP used to have a suggested max amount, and the Dean of Liberal Arts has been fine with matching that amount. But times have changed, wording's been amended. OSP no longer has a recommended maximum.

The closest they get is:

• 'PIs are authorized to commit their own effort as cost sharing in accordance with limits assigned by their academic units. For example, a faculty member in a particular department may be allowed to aggregate up to 25% of his or her academic appointment on sponsored projects without prior approval. The 25% of the academic appointment is often less than 25% of the PI’s total time. If faculty members contribute their academic appointment on a sponsored project, or cumulatively across multiple sponsored projects, at a value that exceeds what is allowed by their academic unit then they must provide the Office of Sponsored Projects (OSP) approval from the appropriate dean or VP.'
   

To put it another way: It's typically at or below 2.25 months of the 9 month academic year, which translates into 25%.

• What they mean by 'The 25% of the academic appointment is often less than 25% of the PI’s total time' is that PIs with sponsored research tend to assign themselves over the summer on their projects, so if you spread the 2.25 months across the full 12 month year, now we're talking 2.25 months equals 18.75% of the total year.
  
  Here's the basic math:
  • 2.25 months / 9 months = 25% or 9 months x 25% = 2.25 months
  • 2.25 months / 12 months = 18.75% or 12 months x 18.75% = 2.25 months

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