Allocations

Every study should include a detailed budget that outlines how the study will be spent.  The budget should include personnel costs based on a percentage of time that employees are expected to spend on the project.

When a grant is awarded, the budget should be revised based on the final awarded budget amount.  The Grants Administrator will also request the plan of allocation of staff time from the Principal Investigator or the PI designee.  That allocation may follow the budgeted effort in the grant or may be determined based on how much time they think the study startup will be.

The Grants Administrator will prepare budget projections on a regular basis and review with the Principal Investigator.  That discussion will also include future allocations of effort for study staff.

The Grants Administrator will prepare requests to allocate effort and submit to the finance team for entry into the accounting and grants management system.

Reporting

Sutter Health Effort Reporting Policy is located in Policy Stat under ID 1699325.  Sutter Health requires that an after-the-fact certification of effort be completed on a monthly basis.  The purpose of the effort report is to certify actual estimated effort worked on sponsored research projects.

Effort reports are typically generated from Lawson Grants Manager on a monthly basis and distributed to supervisors.  Manual Effort Reports for physicians are available from your Grants Administrator.

Key points to remember are:

• Report must be completed by the employee or someone with first-hand knowledge of how that individual’s effort was expended.
• Effort reports are not time records.  They are reasonable estimates of time expended on a grant and they are to be reported in terms of percentage of effort.
• Effort reports must add up to 100% whether you are a full time or part time employee.
• Changes to effort reports after initially filed are to be recertified and include an explanation why the change is needed and “why you know better now than you did at the time the report was originally certified.”   Reports must be clearly marked as “Recertification”.
• If you need training on how to complete effort reports, please contact the Director of Grants and Contracts.