Sponsored Awards Overbase Payments
Purpose
To establish guidelines for paying an Overbase payment from a Sponsored Research Account to Faculty and Staff.
Covered Policies
This policy applies only to Overbase payments paid from a Sponsored Research Account.
Definitions
Sponsored Research
Expenditures that are covered by an External Sponsor in support of furthering the research mission at Boston University. These expenditures flow through funded program/internal order numbers beginning with 9500xxxxxx (federal) or 9550xxxxxx (non-federal).
Incidental Pay
Salary supplements for a one-time (non-recurring) activity is normally under 3 months. In rare occasions, this type of pay can occur up to 6 months.
Institutional Base Salary
Institutional Base Salary, or “IBS,” is annual compensation paid for a person’s appointment (9 or 12 months), whether that person’s time is spent on research, teaching, administration, or other University activities. This annual compensation is initially based on a University employee’s offer letter. IBS does not include payments from other organizations or income that a person is permitted to earn outside of his or her University responsibilities, such as private consulting. The IBS rate is be used as the base salary for all grant proposals.
Overbase Payment
A form of additional compensation for work that is preapproved by their Manager (Staff) or Dean (Faculty) and is not part of an employee’s regular position.
University Policy
Federal guidance dictates how Boston University employees are compensated from Sponsored Research. When preparing budgets for standard Research Awards, for example, BU employees must enter their annual compensation, which includes activities such as research, teaching, patient care, etc. and should be based on the number of months effort devoted to the project.
BU employees do not receive Overbase or additional payments because they received grant funding.
At Boston University, Faculty and Staff are paid based on their Institutional Base Salary. Overbase amounts paid from Sponsored Research are limited to two circumstances:
- 9-month Faculty who work and receive pay in the summer
- In very limited circumstances, incidental work is allowed on Sponsored Research
- Faculty Example: Teaching a full course load or 100% grant funded and Employee is requested to evaluate a curriculum for a School District that is provided by grant funds.
- Staff Example: Working full-time as a staff member on a grant and is requested to hub a course that is required for that project; something that is clearly outside of required duties and is a one-time project.
- Examples of when an overbase is not allowed on Sponsored Research
- Department receives a Program Project award with administrative assistance included and wants to pay an overbase from the grant to a current BU employee for their assistance.
- BU Faculty brings in a very large award and wants an overbase in recognition of the work they did.
- Department wants to pay a BU Staff Employee for the work they have done in going “above and beyond” their job duties.
For overbase payments that are not allowed on Sponsored Research accounts, it is at the discretion of the department to make those overbase payments from non-Sponsored Research accounts. i.e. University Cost Centers, Discretionary Accounts, or Start-up Funds.
For any questions on whether an overbase payment is appropriate to be paid on a Sponsored Research account, please reach out to the Assistant Vice President, Sponsored Programs, Post Award.
Please note that the Provost has Guidelines around Non-Sponsored Overbase Payments; more information can be found here.
Contact
History
This policy was adopted in November 2023.
View PDF of this policy