What’s essential?

Principal investigators are responsible for ensuring that all effort commitments for their sponsored programs are:  regularly reviewed to reflect actual work performed; consistent with proposed effort; and, ultimately, certified.

Why it’s important

Federal cost principles for educational institutions (OMB Circular A-21) require that UNH have a system for documenting the distribution of charges for personal services on sponsored awards.

How to comply

• Each UNH employee, except for students and non-permanent employees receiving a one-time payment, must complete UNH’s Required Effort Reporting and Certification Training at least every 3 years.

• Communicate promptly via a written revised work plan with your Business Service Center (BSC) to assign labor distributions to new awards/activities and adjust for future charges to other UNH accounts as appropriate.

• Get written approval from the Senior Vice Provost for Research for any employee who is to be paid more than 95% of regular pay from sponsored programs.

• An Effort Certification must be completed annually by or for each salaried employee who received pay from one or more UNH Sponsored Programs under the Plan-Confirmation method during the Effort Certification period. Effort Certifications are to be provided to the UNH sponsored programs administration office no later than September 30 each year for the preceding UNH fiscal year.

Additional Information

The certified effort report includes cost-shared effort.  

Unless specifically required by a federal sponsor to follow a different, acceptable method for payroll distribution, UNH adheres to the Plan-Confirmation method. Under Plan-Confirmation, the distribution of salaries and wages of professorial and professional staff applicable to sponsored agreements is based on budgeted, planned, or assigned work activity, periodically updated to reflect any significant changes in work distribution when those occur.

See also: Effort Reporting and Certification in the Managing Awards section of the Research Office website.

SPA Financial Management Group Staff can answer questions and advise you on how to comply with OMB A-21 and UNH’s effort certification policy.