Allocating time to grants


Benton County just had a WIC audit and the supervisor salary charged to the grant was denied because I was using an allocation method of her time based on staff time as direct charge instead of indirect.  This is what I received,



In this situation where a supervisor is using the percentage that the subordinates spent on the federal award to claim their own time on the grant does not reasonably reflect that supervisor’s time on the grant, and that allocation method is not reasonable, and therefore the supervisor’s salary/fringe are unallowable as a direct costs. The supervisor’s time can only be charged to the salary/fringe line if it is backed by time studies, dailies, or other documentation that shows the amount of time the supervisor spent working on the WIC grant. If this supporting documentation does not exists, then the supervisor’s time is an indirect cost and should be included on the indirect line”. 



My questions:



How do you charge Public Health supervisor time to the grants, direct or indirect?

If direct, does the supervisor enter time in your system to each grant or are you using some method of allocation?





Peggy Koscielniak | Fiscal Services Supervisor |

Benton County Human Services | PO Box 740 | Foley, MN  56329

320.968.5140

3 comments:

Unknown said...

All PH staff record 100% of their time in PH Doc, this includes the PH Supervisor(s). If they code time directly to a grant, then it is included in direct costs.

Our director does not record time in PH Doc, so none of her direct time is charged to the grant. It is all included in the indirect costs.

Michelle Salber said...

We do the same in Morrison County as stated by Jena above and have had no issues with our WIC audits.

Rosy said...

Sibley County has the same issue with our support and fiscal staff, since we don't do time reporting in PH DOC. I was given the same answer about a year ago - if it is not documented by daily time records you can not request payment as a direct cost.