Budget Preparation
Resources included on this page will support you in thinking about what is involved in building your project budget. Pre-Award staff is happy to assist you in developing your budget to ensure your calculations are correct and that you are requesting sufficient funds to successfully complete your project. Please contact the Director of Grant Development as soon as possible so that a Pre-Award staff member can be designated to assist you. Your assigned pre-award staff member will enter your budget into your Kuali Research proposal for you.
Budget Preparation Tools
ORP Quick Grant Reference Guide - contains institutional information, eg. mileage, fringe rates, student salary rates. Please contact the Director of Grant Development prior to determining project costs to ensure your budget will be correct and sufficient for your project.
Key elements in the pre-award phase that are critical to post-award management of the award include:
Budget Preparation Guidelines
The following elements should be considered when constructing a budget for direct cost support from a funding agency:
1. Salaries and Wages
- Read SIUE policy on academic year salary recovery to ensure compliance
- Summer Salary
- Graduate Students/Assistants
- Undergraduate Students
- Technical Support
- Clerical Support
- Postdoctoral research associates
- Use of percent of effort
- Increases for COLA (cost of living allowance) and merit-based
2. Fringe Benefits
- Use correct rates; if the project spans multiple fiscal years, are the inflationary adjustments to the rates applying correctly?
3. Equipment
- Be aware of potential differences between equipment definitions (sponsor/institution)
- Capitalization policy. SIUE's capitalization on equipment is $500.00 versus federal of $5,000.00
- Per federal guidance, indirect costs are not allowable on equipment above a certain price per unit. Contact your pre-award staff member for details.
4. Materials and Supplies
- Include only those supplies and materials necessary for the project.
- Laboratory supplies, chemicals, and other consumables included here.
- PCs and laptops (under the Equipment threshold mentioned above) are included here.
5. Travel
- Adhere to SIUE's policy and the funding agency guidelines
- Distinguish between foreign and domestic travel
- Consider mileage, air travel, on-site travel, accommodations, per diem, conference registration costs
- Use the rates set by the U.S. General Services Administration.
- If foreign travel is required and is to be funded by a federal grant, federal international per diem rates must be used.
6. Contractual Services and Consultants
- Ensure that the proposed costs are reasonable and allowable and that the authorized subcontract representative/consultant has signed the proposal or a confirmatory letter.
- Pre-Award staff can assist with acquiring all needed documents for any grant or contract.
- Maintenance/service contracts
- Graphic Arts/photographic services
- Rental/lease of facilities
- Construction/renovation/remodeling costs
7. Subawards
- External institutions with faculty named as senior personnel (co-Investigators) and are performing a substantial portion of the work on the project must follow the institutional subaward process.
- Send the names of your collaborators, the name of your collaborator's institution, and an email contact at your collaborator's institution to your assigned pre-award staff member as soon as possible.
- Your assigned pre-award staff member will work directly with their counterpart at your collaborator's institution to gather necessary subaward documents. (budget, SOW, budget justification, subrecipient LOI, and personnel documents)
- All subaward documents must typically be received 10-15 business days before the proposal is due.
8. Other
- Communications
- Publications
- Animal Care Costs
- Human Subjects Costs
9. Indirect Costs
- SIUE's federally negotiated rate is 44.5%.
- Some sponsors may limited the rate to a certain percentage, or have other calculation requirements.
Tips:
- Inflationary adjustments should be considered, especially for multi-year grants
- For grants with total cost caps, be cognizant of indirect costs when drafting your budget's direct costs
- Budget should be detailed
- Budget justification MUST address all purchases/expenses within each budget line
- Include only allowable costs
- Include matching or cost-sharing only if explicitly required by the sponsor. (if cost-sharing is required it should be proportional between direct and F&A costs)
- Be consistent with funding agency policies and requirements
