Grant Salary Incentive Procedure

A salary buyout occurs when a State funded faculty member writes a portion of his/her annual salary into a grant budget to release the faculty to focus that percentage of time on the grant.  Once the grant is funded, an account is established, and the COEHD Fiscal & HR Officer is informed of the buyout, a revised costing allocation is created to charge the grant for the percentage of the faculty’s salary specified in the grant budget.  When the costing allocation is processed, the state funding or salary savings is released and becomes discretionary in the Dean’s budget.  The salary savings is then used to hire an LOA for the semester so the faculty can focus on the grant.  A salary buyout is not additional salary paid to the faculty.  If a faculty wants to receive a teaching buyout, a minimum of 12% of their salary and 31.6% fringe (or current rate listed on Sponsored Projects website) per course per semester must be written in the approved grant budget.  If at least 12% salary plus fringe is not budgeted into the grant, the PI is not eligible for the teaching buyout option. 

Distribution of salary savings.  The salary savings available from the buyout will first be used to pay the salary of a LOA to teach the faculty member’s class.  Of the remaining salary saving funds, the Dean will split the cost of the LOA 50/50 (dean/buyout) the faculty will then receive 40% and the Dean 60%. The 40% salary savings will be transferred into the faculty member’s F & A account to be used at his/her discretion within university policies.  F & A accounts are roll over discretionary accounts that allow funds to be available from year to year.  The grant account must be established prior to this procedure being implemented.  Examples with three different salary levels are provided below. 

When a faculty member is written into a grant, they need to inform the director/chair.  Once the grant is awarded, the faculty member’s role statement should be revised.  The director/chair will work with the faculty member to locate a LOA to teach the course.

Faculty are not required to participate in the salary incentive procedure.  They can write a portion of their salary into the grant to receive as overload.  An overload is when a B-contract faculty member is paid based on a daily rate by grant funds for work performed during non-contract days.  The buyout and overload options are not mutually exclusive.  Depending on the grant, a PI may choose to include both overload days and buyouts for one or more classes.  Please remember that per university policy, B-contract faculty are permitted to earn a maximum of 50% of their base salary as additional compensation (typically from stipends, overload teaching and non-contract days) paid through university administered funds from July 1 through June 30 of each year.  Keep this in mind when developing grant budgets.

Steps in the Grant Incentive Process 

1. During the grant proposal development process, the faculty member consults with the director/chair about the grant and possibility of buyout.
2. Proposal is approved by OSPA and submitted to the funding agency with at least 12% FTE buyout per course plus fringe. 
3. Once notification of the grant award is received and the final budget is negotiated with the funding agency, the faculty consults with the director/chair about the LOA needs and assists (as appropriate) with the identification of an appropriate individual to teach the classes.
4. To fully ensure that a course buyout is approved, the following steps must be completed four weeks prior to the first day of class:  1) the LOA needs to be identified; 2) Dean’s Office needs to be informed; and 3) an account number needs to be established.  Once the grant award is received and the grant account is created, the revised costing allocation for the faculty is processed.  Once the faculty’s costing allocation is processed, the LOAs hire is submitted and processed.  It should be noted once a grant account is created an F & A account is created for the faculty if one did not exist previously.  It is critical that the faculty member be aware of the time required to identify an LOA, process the paperwork, and provide an orientation for LOA to teach the class.  Often this can be a challenging issue given the timing of grant awards and time required to create an account. 
5. The remaining 40% of the salary savings are transferred to the faculty’s F & A account. 
6. Role statement should be revised and approved. 

The College of Education and Human Development grant salary incentive procedure is more incentivized than other colleges based on the fact that:  1) the PI receives the funds in a roll over account to be used from year to year; 2) the PI is in charge of determining what the funds are to be used for opposed to a department chair or director; and 3) 12% per course is a lower percentage requirement than many colleges.