Grant Administration
Grant and contract applications are initiated by faculty and/or staff through their respective departments and college deans. Institute for Public Service staff members will then review all grant and contract applications for fiscal accountability and compliance under Shippensburg University, State System of Higher Education, and federal/state regulations and statutes. Consultation with the directors of personnel, budget and social equity is commonly held to ensure that the application, if approved and funded, can be properly administered. If appropriate, exceptions are noted. This may require revision of the application, either in part in or in whole.
Every grant or contract has at least one common point of reference—a budget. Upon award of a grant or contract, the approved budget becomes the official spending plan. The budget categories and expenditure patterns permit deviation only to the extent noted either in the grant or contract or as subsequently authorized in writing by the grantor or the contracting agency.
The university faculty or staff member designated as the principal investigator or project director in the grant or contract approval, becomes the institutional program manager. That person is responsible for carrying out the program aims of the project and for complying with applicable rules for financial and program administration. Since the grant or contract will be administered under vice presidential auspices, the vice president having jurisdiction will either designate a member of his/her management staff to exercise specific managerial supervision or will personally assume that obligation. The person so designated will be known institutionally as the program coordinator.
Upon receipt of a grant or contract, a meeting is held with appropriate administrative personnel to discuss the terms and conditions of the grant or contract. This meeting, primarily administrative in nature, deals principally with non-programmatic details, creation of audit trails and specific administrative and fiscal procedures to be observed.
Procurement of supplies, services, furnishings, and equipment will be through normal university purchasing procedures. All procurement documents will be countersigned by the program coordinator and forwarded to the Grant Accounting Office. Care must be exercised to ensure all documents are identified with grant cost center numbers, budget categories and object codes. Requests must be submitted to the Grant Accounting Office to ensure that sufficient funds are available in the grant budget before the action is completed. The Grant Accounting Office will forward the expenditure request to the Institute for Public Service.
Grant and contract awards are frequently predicated upon some measure of institutional matching funds—either of dollars or in-kind services and supplies. Under such conditions, the program manager shall carefully itemize and document on forms furnished by the director of administrative services, or his/her associates, the current value of all supplies drawn either from central stores or from departmental stocks, for use in the project.
When requesting the items through central stores the grant cost center number should be used. In addition, the project costs of telephone toll calls, the value of computer time (and staff) used by the project, and the services supplied by the university are legitimately classified as institutional contributions and should be recorded, if appropriate. Under certain circumstances, the value of space provided, as well as utility and custodial costs, may be properly charged.
Throughout the life of the grant or contract, the program manager will provide the Grant Accounting Office with thel information and documentation necessary to support all income and expenditure transactions. Fiscal and program management of the grant or contract is to conform to the regulations and guidelines prescribed by the grantor and must be made within established budget categories to facilitate the preparation of interim and closing financial reports. Audit trails will be established and preserved to ensure accounting integrity. The program coordinator will be especially alert to the preparation and submission of after-action program evaluations, if required, and will require the program manager to render final program reports as well as participate in the filing of financial reports in the best professional manner, within the reporting period specified after expiration of the grant or contract.
