Budget Development Tools and Information
A budget includes a reasonable estimate of the financial support required to conduct the project, including justification of budget expenses. Check agency guidelines and forms required for your proposal submission. OMB Circular No. A-21 - Cost Principles for Educational Institutions provides guidance on direct costs deemed allocable and allowable on projects sponsored by the federal government.
Direct Costs – Direct costs on sponsored projects are those that can be directly associated with the project with a high degree of accuracy. Direct costs are essential to the project's fulfillment.
- Salaries – depending on agency guidelines you may or not charge salaries to your proposal (professional and research staff, graduate and undergraduate students, OPS or part-time workers, salary figures should be based on the percentage of effort by each individual on the project applied to his/her annual salary.) Grants.gov and some sponsors require effort to be shown in man-months.
- Fringe Benefits – The fringe rate is expressed as a percentage of salary. The rate may vary depending on personnel classification and FTE (See the Fringe Benefits Calculator).
- Tuition – graduate students, also called research assistants, receive in addition to salary, tuition as part of their compensation. Some funding mechanism prohibits tuition payments; you will need to review the agency guidelines.
- Equipment – is any item of equipment having a unit cost of $1,000 or more and a useful life of one year or more and used exclusively for the research project.
- Materials and Supplies – expendable items are those with a useful life of less than one year or a unit cost under $1,000.
- Travel – domestic and foreign travel should be shown separately. List the name, destination, and purpose of trip. Include transportation costs (coach airfare), registration fees, accommodation fees, and other related expenses.
- Publication Costs – estimate the number of pages, page charges, and suggested names of journals.
- Consultants – list each consultant, their specialty or service to the project, and their daily, weekly or monthly rate of reimbursement, and show the consultant’s total projected cost on the project. Include in the proposal a signed letter of collaboration and the consultant’s curriculum vitae.
- Subawards – a subaward is a contract to other organization(s) of some scientific or programmatic aspect of the grant or contract made originally to UF.
- Other – Other costs typically include items such as, research publications, fees, animal costs, or other project related costs, usually less significant dollars than proposed in the other previously mentioned categories.
Indirect Costs (Facilities and Administrative (F & A) Costs) – Costs related to expenses incurred in conducting or supporting research or other externally funded activities but not directly attributable to a specific project that cannot be tied specifically to a project. Some examples of indirect costs are utilities, buildings & grounds, maintenance and depreciation of facilities, equipment, library expenses, general administration, sponsored projects administration, department administration)
When preparing your budget, all of the direct cost items are listed first. Then the appropriate indirect cost percentage rate is assessed against the total of the allowable direct costs.
For UF current Indirect Cost rates, please visit this web site.
Cost Sharing – Cost sharing is defined as the portion of total costs of a sponsored project paid for by UF, rather than the sponsor. Only include cost sharing in a proposal when specifically required under the terms of the particular grant. There are three important terms associated with cost sharing.
- Mandatory Cost Sharing – is defined as cost sharing that is required by the sponsor as a condition to obtaining the award.
- Voluntary Cost Sharing – is defined as the cost that UF offers to pay for in order to become more competitive with peer institutions and peer PIs who are applying for awards for similar types of projects.
- Committed Cost Sharing – is defined as cost sharing (either voluntary or mandatory) once cost sharing is proposed and accepted in an award.
Frequently Needed Information for Budget Preparation:
- Budget:
Overview - Direct Cost:
Categories - F & A (Indirect Cost) Rates:
Federal
Non-Federal
Clinical Trials
Indirect Cost Policy
Indirect Cost Return and Use Policy - Fringe Benefits:
For current fringe rates and health insurance costs, please read Human Resources Employer's Costs for Grant/Contract Funded Positions
Fringe Benefits Calculator
Fringe Calculation Using Peoplesoft Grants - Other:
Budget Calculation Information, including Graduate Student Tuition and Health Insurance
Budgeting Graduate Student Salaries
You must budget at least the Graduate Assistant Minimum Salaries for 2006-2007 in grant proposals. However, please check with your Department’s Fiscal office to determine what the appropriate graduate student salary should be in your academic unit.
Budgeting Graduate Student Tuition on Grants, Contracts, and Other Sponsored Agreements
All proposals, including resubmissions, competing renewals and supplements that include salary support for graduate students and where tuition is not prohibited by the sponsor, must also include the appropriate tuition amount in the budget.
For budgeting purposes use the current in-state tuition rate for new graduate students (06/07 $242.81 per credit hour). Add a 15% escalation factor for estimating tuition in future budget periods. Use the tuition table below for a quick budget calculation. Fees are not charged on Research Grants, but may be charged on Training Grants. To calculate tuition and fees use the University’s Financial Services’ tuition/fee calculator. Remember to add the 15% escalation factor to current rates to avoid shortfalls in future budget periods.
Tuition Table (includes a 15% escalation factor, based on 24 credit hours, does not include fees)
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Graduate Student Health Insurance Benefit
All proposals, including resubmissions, competing renewals, supplements and revised budgets, must budget appropriate amounts for the Graduate Student's health insurance benefit as follows:
- $1,440 annually ($580 fall, $580 spring, and $280 for the summer semester)
- Escalation factor use 5% per year
Miscellaneous
NSF Archived Consultant Rates (In 2006, NSF removed the maximum consultant rate of pay restriction. Consultant rate of pay still is required to be reasonable)
NIH Salary Cap: $186,600, (01/01/2007 - 12/31/2007)
UF Indirect Cost Information
UF Fringe Benefits: For current fringe rates and health insurance costs, please read: