Most grant proposals include a section on "key personnel.” Permanent employees may be included in the proposal with plans for their reassignment to the new project. (See “Don’t Supplant:”) For other personnel slots, a job description may be included as well as a statement indicating that the position will be filled in accordance with College policy and Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity guidelines.
Project personnel already employed by the College will need to be reassigned to the grant. New personnel will need to be hired. Both activities take time and must be handled immediately.
All full-time personnel working on grants and contracts (grant funded) are hired for the grant period only. Employment may end when the grant ends.
College policy and procedures govern all activities related to personnel. Job descriptions exist for all positions normally filled in the College. Job announcements must conform to the job description. Pay particular attention to educational level, experience, and skill requirements. Classifications and pay rates usually conform to the College salary schedule and job classifications, provided sufficient funding is available from the grant. Usually the Project Director and Human Resources will decide together how much the position will be paid, and the projected salary is included on the job announcement.
Despite this wage setting process, you will not be able to pay the candidate more than the funds available from the grant or other sources.
If changes have occurred in the staff members listed in the proposal, these changes may need approval by the funding agency. Check with the Grants Manager before proceeding.
Hiring new full-time personnel is a time-consuming process. Always check with your immediate supervisor and the Human Resources Office prior to beginning the process. Basically, the same hiring process that applies to permanent, president-approved employees applies to all personnel hired for a grant. All positions must be budget approved. In the case of a grant, this means that the District Governing Board approved a Board Action Item to accept the grant and a budget that contained the position you are trying to fill. Vacancies must be advertised according to College hiring procedures. The application steps for a specific vacancy are outlined in detail on the job announcement.
Applications are accepted until the closing date and time designated on the job announcement. Normally, positions are advertised for two weeks. Some positions are advertised nationally in publications such as the Chronicle of Higher Education. The hiring process is likely to take longer if the position is nationally advertised. Costs to advertise nationally in the Chronicle or other specialized publications need to be budgeted and paid for by the college. Grant funds cannot be used for this purpose.
This hiring process can take up to two months. For more details about the employment process, contact the Human Resources Department or visit their website at: www.coconino.edu/hr
* If no job description exists for a particular position, you will also have to go through the whole process to develop a new position. This can take a couple months; so it is wise to start this process as early as possible to allow adequate time. It is wise to complete this process between the time the grant is submitted and notification of award is expected. Send the Position Description Questionnaire and the proposed new job description to Human Resources for approval.
When a portion of an existing college employee's salary is being paid by the grant while the employee is working on the grant project, this proportion of the personnel salaries and related benefits must be reallocated from regular college accounts to grant accounts. Assignment of existing college employees to the new project funded by grant funds requires a payroll change. This needs to occur swiftly so that the change can take effect on the date that the grant "hires" the individual staff member. After checking with your supervisor to be sure that it is okay to proceed, initiate a Personnel Action Form (PAF) and route for signatures so that the appropriate percentage of salary is charged against the grant funds for the specified period.
The Project Director should notify Human Resources and consult with the Grants Accountant and Payroll to make sure that the proper paperwork is completed for the transfer. This needs to occur quickly, in time for the change to take effect in the first month of the grant, or on the date that the grant "hires" the individual staff member.
Fringe benefits such as health insurance, retirement, worker's compensation, FICA, and others ALWAYS accompany salary transfers. The percentage of fringe benefits paid by the grant will correspond to the percentage of salary. Fringe benefits change each year and may be subject to funding agency restrictions.
Staff members whose salaries are paid in part by external funds need to keep time and effort documentation records. Such records can take the form of monthly summaries of hours spent on the grant (see Time & Effort document in Appendices) or actual time sheets for those staff members paid on an hourly basis.
Supplanting internal funds with external funds is ILLEGAL! ILLEGAL! ILLEGAL! You cannot use external funds to pay for ongoing activities already budgeted or for the usual activities assigned to a position. For example, grant funds cannot be used to pay the salary of an English faculty member to teach a regularly scheduled credit course. However, grant funds could be used, if authorized in the proposal, to provide new specialized English classes for at-risk populations. If night show host David Letterman had a top ten list for ways to get in trouble with grants, supplanting might head the list. So don't do it! If you are uncertain about whether a situation qualifies as supplanting, consult with the Grants Accountant or the Grants Manager.
If a portion of an individual's time is being used in the project and
a portion of the salary is being used as matching funds, the time used
for the grant needs to be recorded on a Time & Effort document.
This document is likely to generate choruses of groans from administrators
and faculty alike.
Whether we like it or not, current training for auditors advises them
to look for such records to document time and effort spent on a project.
Deans and other supervisors need to document time spent right from the
time they know the project is going to be funded since a considerable
amount of their time is spent up-front preparing the project for startup,
initiating the employment process, and preparing the Project Director
for his/her duties.
Proposal budgets generally contain the matching amount required. In practice, it works best to begin with the dollar amount and figure out what percentage of salary it represents. The lapse of time between the proposal submission and award can affect fringe benefits and salary amounts. Therefore, actual amounts should be used instead of the "proposed" amount or just _ of a yearly amount.
Supervision and evaluation of persons assigned to or hired by the grant will follow guidelines established by College policy and procedure for each position. In the case of split assignments in which portions of loads are assigned to the grant, evaluation arrangements should be made with the original supervisor. Such arrangements often take the form of memoranda detailing performance on the grant assignment to be included with the formal evaluation.
The performance of the project staff is the most critical factor in determining whether a project is successful or not. Facilitating and supporting the work of staff members is one of the most important roles of the Project Director.