The University must comply with the terms and conditions of the federal awards it receives.  One requirement is that the amount of an individual’s salary charged to or cost shared with an award must be consistent with the effort he/she expended on that award.  In accordance with that requirement, the University charges individual faculty and other employee salaries to sponsored projects and/or University cost sharing funds based both upon the levels of effort committed in proposal budgets and the actual level of effort individuals subsequently provided.

Federal regulations (OMB Circular No. A-21) require, that at least annually, a statement be signed that certifies an individual’s sponsored project and/or cost sharing salary charges are reasonable in relation to the percentage of effort they expended on those projects.  The University collects the required certification on the Annual Certification Statement (ACS).  The ACS shows the effort percentages that are necessary to justify the percentages of an individual’s salary that were charged to sponsored project or University cost sharing funds.  Effort percentages can be deemed reasonable if they are approximately equal to or less than the actual percentages of effort devoted to the individual sponsored projects.

A sample ACS and additional information on managing sponsored project effort and compensation is available on the University’s AdminNet Web site.

The ACSs for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2006 will be distributed in the next few weeks.  Each Principal Investigator should sign his or her own statement.  Non-faculty statements should be signed by the employee or the principal investigators associated with the sponsored projects the employee was charged to.  Administrators should not certify an ACS other than their own.  However, in cases where the principal investigator or employee are not physically available to sign, an administrator may certify the effort provided they can document their basis for verifying that the actual work was performed.

Please complete the statements in time for them to be returned to the Comptroller's Office by December 11^th.