Effort Commitments and Payroll Certification
RAMP - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
No-Cost Extension Request Procedures
Extramural Support Policies and Procedures
Research Education Development (RED)
Total Awards
$1928M
Federal Awards
$1125M
Non-Federal Awards
$803M
Research Expenditures
8th (FY22)
The term matching often is a source of confusion. The National Science Foundation and some other sponsors explicitly indicate that they view matching and cost sharing to be synonymous. In addition, 2 CFR Part 200 Subpart A 200.1 Definitions refers to "cost sharing or matching" without distinguishing between the two. See also, 2 CFR Part 200 Subpart D 200.306 is Cost Sharing or Matching.
For the purpose of UW policy, these terms are considered to mean the same thing. For more information, refer to 1.6.1.1. of the Guidelines for Cost Sharing.
Cost sharing may redirect departmental, school, or central resources from other mission-critical uses to support sponsored research agreements. Cost sharing may reduce the flexibility of researchers to conduct other research by obligating their effort to specific projects. It may increase the requirements for capturing, monitoring, and documenting for audit all commitments and expenditures of cost shared funds. Cost sharing may also decrease the UW’s recovery of indirect costs (F&A costs) by the addition of cost sharing to the research base.
UW salaries and fringe benefits are already captured in the UW’s financial system. They’re easy expenses to document, and their value is straightforward to verify. Typically, payroll cost sharing does not require a new outlay of cash. Non-payroll expenses may require a new outlay of University resources. When non-payroll expenses are used as cost share, they may be difficult to document, and their value may be challenging to determine.
Yes, the dean's or director's office should approve any instance of cost sharing. This is to ensure that proposed cost sharing is consistent with the overall policy to minimize cost sharing on sponsored projects.
The Effort Commitment and/or Cost Share Update Form is used when there is a change in the specifics of cost share from what you proposed initially or what has been entered into the system. The form is used to make any changes to payroll cost sharing, e.g., corrections to dates or personnel changes. The form should also be used when you want to notify RSP that a non-payroll or third party cost sharing expense has occurred. See instructions for completing the Update Form. Note that this form is also used to initiate changes to sponsor paid effort commitments.
Departmental staff should send the update forms to their Dean’s or Director’s office for approval. Dean’s or Director’s offices should send approved update forms to costshare@rsp.wisc.edu. Please also see Page 1 of the Update Form instructions for specific requirements in submitting the form.
After a non-payroll expense (including third party cost sharing) has been incurred that is to be used as cost sharing for a project, submit the Effort Commitment and/or Cost Share Update Form. Follow the instructions for "Required Supporting Documentation for Non-Payroll" cost sharing. The information submitted will be loaded by RSP into the Cost Share Bolt On and will subsequently appear in the WISER Cost Share Expenditures tab.
Information is loaded on a weekly basis into the ECC system. The process is manual and typically takes place on Monday or Tuesday.
The University began using its current Shared Financial System in February 2008. The Cost Share Bolt-On was created as part of SFS, and information can be captured in it as far back as January 1, 2008, but not before.
Salary and fringe for the principal investigator and co-investigator would be considered payroll cost sharing. Remember that the Dean’s office should review this cost sharing request. They may advise you not to quantify a cost sharing commitment in the proposal for the PI/Co-I. In that case, you would enter $0 in the budget and indicate that the PI/Co-I will provide adequate oversight of the project and that other University resources would be available as necessary to support the project. Should the project be funded under these circumstances, you may need to cost share 1% of the PI’s time. The alternative would be to commit a certain percentage of time for the PI/Co-I and, should the Dean’s office approve this cost sharing, you would have to identify a source to pay for that salary and fringe. Also note that, if the sponsor allowed you to use F&A on the salary and fringe as cost sharing, the F&A would be considered non-payroll cost sharing.