(or Documentation of Personnel Expenses)

Purpose:  Federal regulations require documentation of all salary expenses paid from federal funding or used as cost sharing towards a federally funded project.

Cost Sharing:  (Also called matching) – the portion of project costs not paid by federal funds.  There are two types of cost sharing:

     Mandatory:  Required as an eligibility criteria to apply for an award.

     Voluntary:    Offered by an institution, but not required (MSU does not allow without Vice President for Research and Economic Development approval in advance of proposal submission).                                                                                                                                           

Note:  Both are tracked by Time and Effort Reports.

Other non-paid time commitments: Faculty or staff may wish or be required at times to commit more of their time to a federally funded project than they are paid (listed in a budget or in a “Current & Pending” grant commitments form).  Please remember if you do this it must be included in Time & Effort reporting and this reduces the capacity to commit time as match for a different project for which it may be required.

Who Reports: 

  • Employees who are paid from grants (OSP managed funds)
  • Employees who have part of their salaries as a cost sharing commitment

Procedures: 

  • Each department decides how to gather information on Time and Effort (T&E).
    • For the College of Education, Health and Human Development, faculty to whom this applies will receive an email from Business Operations Manager each month asking for T&E information. When requested, provide percent time distribution and index for each portion of percent time.
  • When you are asked to report your time, report the hours or percent you worked on the funded project, which should be consistent with your explicitly stated commitments.
  • Allowable activities for federal grant reimbursement include work directly related to an agreement, such as delivering lectures about aspects of the ongoing activity, writing reports and articles, developing and maintaining protocols, managing substances/chemicals, managing and securing project-specific data, coordinating research subjects, participating in appropriate seminars, consulting with colleagues and graduate students and attending meetings and conferences
  • If you report less time spent than you were paid, a payroll correction will be initiated for the difference (i.e.  the federal government paid more than their fair share of the salary cost)