June 2020 Updated OMB Guidance Regarding Idle Time Charged to Sponsored Awards
University Leadership sent a memo to all faculty noting that per OMB memo M-20-26, idle time on grants can continue to be charged on BU sponsored awards through September 30, 2020. The memo includes a new requirement that states:
“awarding agencies must inform recipients to exhaust other available funding sources to sustain its workforce and implement necessary steps to save overall operational costs (such as rent renegotiations) during this pandemic period in order to preserve Federal funds for the ramp-up effort. Recipients should retain documentation of their efforts to exhaust other funding sources and reduce overall operational costs.”
In order to comply with this, the University is requesting faculty who continue to utilize the flexibilities to document any additional funding sources available to them and provide a reason why these sources are not being used to offset costs. A template that can be used to produce this required documentation was provided in the memo and is only necessary for research taking advantage of this flexibility after June 18, 2020. We asked faculty to return the template to ospera@bu.edu only if they are expecting to continue idle time to sponsored research accounts. If they plan to move idle salary from sponsored research to a University account, this form is not required.