[Plsfaculty] FW: purchase of books and journals on grants and contracts generally not allowed

[Donna-Rae Marquez]

Hello All Faculty,

 

Please see the extremely important message from Sponsored Projects regarding
the purchase of books and subscriptions on Federally Funded Projects.

 

Basically, it is not allowable.

 

Please let me know if you have any questions.

 

Sincerely,

Donna-Rae

 

Donna-Rae M. Marquez

Manager, Business & Finance

School of Plant Sciences

The University of Arizona 

Forbes 303B

Tucson, Arizona 85721

520.621.8689 Telephone

520.621.7186 FAX

 

From: Discussion of Research Administrators' Issues
[mailto:RAMTALK at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Liu, Jing - (jingliu)
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2011 3:29 PM
To: RAMTALK at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: purchase of books and journals on grants and contracts generally
not allowed

 

Dear PIs and Research Administrators:

 

We noticed some of our proposals are including purchase of books and
subscription of journals in the budget.  Please be aware that the Federal
Government treats these costs as part of our library requisition costs,
meaning indirect costs.  Therefore, we are not allowed to charge these costs
directly to grants and contracts, especially federally sponsored projects.

 

Only under very limited exceptional circumstances we may be able to justify
the direct charge of these costs.  Generally, scientific books and journals
benefit the overall research work of the people involved in a specific grant
project.  So, charging these costs to a specific project is not justifiable.
In addition, when these books and journals are available via our library
system, the Federal agencies expect that we utilize this resource that has
been paid via indirect cost rates.  

 

Please do NOT budget books and journals unless there is an exceptional
circumstance.  For example, the nature of the project requires each
participant of the project to have a copy of certain book or manual and our
library system does not provide this book or does not have sufficient copies
for checkout, etc..  The budget justification needs to explain the specific
and exclusive benefit of the purchase to the project and to state if items
are available or not via our library systems.  If it's available, why the
library system is not sufficient for the project needs.

 

We have to reject weak justifications because they increase the audit risk
for the entire university.  The Federal agencies are clear that an item
budgeted and awarded does not guarantee the item is allowable per OMB
Circular A-21.  We may still need to remove the costs even some items are
listed in the budget and approved by the granting agencies.

 

Thanks for your attention.  Please contact your Pre-award administrator if
you have questions about the budget.  If you have further questions about
the allowability of books and journals, please contact me directly.

 

 

Jing

 

Jing Liu, CPA
Manager, Sponsored Projects Quality Assurance
Sponsored Projects Services
The University of Arizona
PO Box 3308
Tucson, AZ 85722-3308
(520) 626-6442
Fax: (520) 626-4137

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