Summer Research Pay

Summer Earnings for Nine-Month EPA Employees

Explanation: In response to a federal audit by the National Science Foundation, now ongoing, and in order to ensure compliance with Federal Circular A-21, the Office of Contracts and Grants has requested the colleges to formalize and publish procedures and processes for monitoring summer pay. The following procedures have been developed by the CHASS Personnel Office, Business Office, and Research Office:

A monthly deadline will be established by which summer salary submissions can be expected to make payroll, and beyond which submissions cannot be guaranteed to make payroll. This will reduce or eliminate uncertainty, frustration, and ill-feeling among both faculty and staff.

In April of each year, the Director of CHASS Research Administration will provide notification to the Dept Heads, research faculty, and departmental staff as well as to CHASS Personnel and Business Offices, of projections for summer pay on sponsored project for the upcoming summer and of monthly deadlines for submission.

Departmental staff are expected to take note of summer salary projections for their faculty, and to contact individual faculty members to discuss initiation for additional pay. They should then be in contact with the Research Office about specific amounts and periods, prior to the submission deadline. Additional / Summer Pay Forms are initiated in the departments.

All forms that do not involve sponsored projects are routed directly to the CHASS Personnel Office by the monthly deadline. All forms that do include summer research pay on a ledger-5 account (contracts or grants) are routed directly to the CHASS Research Office. If forms cannot be submitted by the deadline, for whatever reason, departmental staff are to notify the faculty that their summer pay cannot be guaranteed to make payroll for that month, and that if they do not, they will be processed to pay the following month.

The Personnel Office and the Research Office reviews and approves forms as expeditiously as possible, making additional and summer pay a priority item. In the Research Office they are compared to the awards and budgets of individual projects, and checked for compliance with Circular A-21 J10d(2), which states that except for teaching, charges for work performed in the summer months must be determined for each faculty member at a rate not in excess of the base salary divided by the period, whatever that period may be. Furthermore, other obligations of time for the same period must be taken into account.

The National Science Foundation does not allow more than 2 months of summer effort to be charged to NSF funds. In addition, if an individual requests 3 full months of summer pay on any research funding source an explanation/justification must be provided by the faculty member, so that documentation is obtained regarding the researcher’s effort for the summer and consequent lack of vacation time. When the Research Office has approved and initialed the forms, they are hand-carried to the Personnel Office for processing. The Research Office retains copies of all forms connected with research summer pay in both paper and electronic form.

The Personnel Office reviews all additional / summer pay forms and identifies those that contain ledger-5 funds, to verify that they have been approved by the Research Office. If any are found which have do not have this approval, they are sent to the Research Office. If this delay prevents forms from being returned to the Personnel Office by the deadline, they cannot be guaranteed to make payroll for that month. The Personnel Office also identifies additional/summer pay requests for faculty who are do not yet have summer research pay but are listed as expected to receive it, so that all funding for each period can be taken into consideration, since the Research Office does not receive all forms.

The Personnel Office submits all summer pay actions in the HR system, and retains all Additional Pay/Summer Pay forms.

For additional information, please contact Missy Seate in the CHASS Research Office, at 919 513-1837, or at missy_seate@ncsu.edu