Background

Unrecovered Facilities and Administrative (F&A) cost sharing applies to any grant or contract where all the following apply:

• there is a cost share pledge on the award or sponsor approval,
• the award or sponsor rules state that the sponsor accepts "unrecovered Facilities and Administrative (F&A) costs" as a valid cost share contribution,
• the award's Facilities and Administrative cost rate is less than the Univerisity's standard F&A rate, which is the federally negotiated rate.

Definition

Sometimes the University's F&A rate is higher than the rate agreed to on an award. As a result, the University is reimbursed for fewer overhead costs by the sponsor. In this situation, the University ends up with a shortfall called "unrecovered Facilities and Administrative (F&A) costs". Some sponsors allow this shortfall to be applied as a cost share contribution. When a budget has cost sharing that includes unrecovered Facilities and Administrative (F&A) cost, Grant and Contract Accounting (GCA) adjusts the calculated cost sharing on a quarterly basis.

PI/Staff Procedure

If unrecovered Facilities and Administrative (F&A) costs are used to satisfy a portion of a cost share pledge, periodically review the budget driver to verify GCA has applied any allowable unrecovered Facilities and Administrative (F&A) costs to the cost share pledge. This cost share will be listed in the budget driver (BGT/screen 6 - Faculty Effort Certification/screen 03 - Cost Share Inquiry Screen, under object code 25-99). If you have any questions, send an email to gcaques@u.washington.edu.

References/Regulations

• UW Grants Information Memorandum (GIM) 21 - Cost Sharing Policy for Sponsored Agreements
• Office of Management and Budget Circulars:
  • A-21 - Cost Principles for Educational Institutions
  • A-110 - Uniform Administrative Requirements for Grants and Agreements with Institutions of Higher Education, Hospitals, and other Non-Profit Organizations
• Faculty Effort Certification (FEC)
• Non-FEC Cost Share Contribution Spreadsheet (MS Excel)

Contacts

If you:

• are preparing your proposal or waiting to hear about a submitted proposal, contact Grant and Contract Services (GCS) via:
  • email at gcsvcs@u.washington.edu
  • phone at 206.543.4043
• have cost share questions on your award, contact Grant and Contract Accounting (GCA) via:
  • email at gcaques@u.washington.edu
  • phone at 206.543.8454
• have faculty effort questions on your award, contact Management Accounting and Analysis (MAA) via:
  • email at efecs@uw.edu
  • phone at 206.685.7395