My Perspective of the SRAI Pre-Award Fundamentals and LevelUP
The Pre-Award Fundamentals workshop and LevelUP Modules help out a Contract Administrator returning to the world of Sponsored Programs.
I attended the iSRA Pre-Award Fundamentals Intensive virtual workshop on December 8, 10, 15, and 17. This article will focus on the Budget Development session presented by Jose Alcaine, PhD, MBA, CRA and Kimberly Read, PhD, CRA. Jose and Kim tackled a big subject in an easy to understand and interesting way.
They started the presentation by touching on 2 CFR 200 and 48 CFR 9904 and how these regulations guide budgeting and cost accounting standards. Next, they moved into discussing reasonableness, allocability, and consistent treatment in budgets. I already learned about this in one of my SRAI LevelUP modules that I completed as part of my onboarding so I felt pretty comfortable with this topic.
After discussing direct costs (costs necessary for the project), indirect costs (costs necessary for the grant but have a joint purpose), and modified total direct costs (MTDC), Jose and Kim had us break into groups to discuss a budget scenario that we had been previously assigned. I was able to use our OSP budget template and got most of it complete but was struggling to calculate percent of effort based on what they gave us in the scenario (hours worked per week). Because of this, I was looking forward to talking with my group about how they calculated this. In the end I was able to figure out the calculation to convert from hours per week to percent effort.
The budget scenario work on top of the real-life scenarios given by our presenters and my colleagues in the training have given me some confidence going forward in budget development. I also know now that I have this SRAI community to turn to when there are new and challenging issues presented to me. It is likely that someone out there has the experience and knowledge to tackle the problem or can point me in the right direction.
Learn more about the iSRA Training Intensive Programs!
Authored by Natalie Parker-McDaniel, Contracts and Grants Administrator
The University of Alabama in Huntsville
#Catalyst#January2022#Education#LevelUP