Memo

New Regulatory Requirement for Annual Payroll Distribution Certification

To:                       Stanford Research Community

From:                  Ann Arvin, Vice Provost and Dean of Research

                              Randy Livingston, Vice President for Business Affairs and CFO

Date:                   June 20, 2013

Subject:              New Regulatory Requirement for Annual Payroll Distribution Certification

The federal government is requiring Stanford to augment its certification of payroll charges to sponsored and non-sponsored activities. To satisfy this requirement, Stanford will add a process for annual certification of 100% of payroll charges for calendar year 2013 for each faculty, staff, academic staff researcher (ASR), student and postdoctoral scholar whose Stanford paid salary is charged in whole or in part to one or more of the following:

  • federally sponsored projects
  • subawards with a federal prime sponsor where Stanford is the subrecipient
  • cost sharing accounts for federally sponsored projects
  • non-federally sponsored projects that incorporate Office of Management and Budget federal requirements (A-21)

Calendar year 2013 certification begins in spring 2014

Faculty and individuals with principal investigator (PI) waivers who have salary charged to any of the sources listed above will review and electronically certify their sponsored and non-sponsored payroll charges. PIs will also review and electronically certify the annual sponsored and non-sponsored payroll charges for each of their staff, and salaried students and postdoctoral scholars. Staff supervisors may need to review and certify certain non-sponsored salary charges for employees who report to them.

Preparing for the annual process begins in 2013

Two new reports will facilitate understanding of this new responsibility and process. These reports will reflect 100% of payroll charges for the 2013 spring academic quarter and are for informational purposes only. They will not require certification.

  1. Finance and/or research administrators will receive an employee FYI Quarterly Payroll Distribution Report for each PI they support beginning July or August 2013.  (Faculty and their salaries are excluded from these reports.) They will review the reports with PIs.
  2. Faculty will receive their individual faculty FYI Quarterly Payroll Distribution Report beginning August 2013. Administrators will not receive this report.

Reviewing expenditure statements for sponsored projects

PIs will continue the current practice of reviewing and certifying quarterly expenditure statements for each of their sponsored projects. Staff will continue the current practice of reviewing the monthly expenditure statements and verifying their review by signing and dating the monthly statements through August 2013. Beginning in September 2013, staff will review the monthly expenditure statements and will verify their review by signing the quarterly expenditure statements.

Further communications and training will be provided regarding this new process. If you have questions about this new certification or your responsibilities, please contact Sara Bible at sbible@stanford.edu, Ken Schulz at kschulz@stanford.edu or Patti McCabe at pmccabe@stanford.edu