Table of Contents
- Budget Creation
- Personnel
- Fringe Benefits
- Travel
- Equipment
- Participant Support Costs
- Other Direct Costs
- Contractual or Consultant Services
- Subawards
Budget Creation
The budget gives a clear picture of all expenditures involved to implement the activities described in the proposal. The project description provides the picture of your proposal in words, whereas the budget further refines that picture, but with numbers. In short, a budget is a description of the project in numbers.
It is important that budget creation is done early in the proposal development process and done in tandem with writing the proposal narrative. It is important that these two important elements mirror each other.
Below is a quick overview of common budget categories:
Personnel
This budget line item may include salaries for faculty members, whether it is a course buyout or additional compensation, student assistants, and part-time or full-time staff.
You will need to determine how much time you will commit to the project. Based on this information, we will work with you to budget either course buyout or additional compensation.
Course Buyout is a portion of faculty base salary that is charged to a grant or contract. You are released from teaching to dedicate that time on a sponsored project. It is not a form of additional monetary compensation. Actual salary and associated fringe benefits are charged to a sponsored project in either fall or spring semester.
Additional Compensation is calculated based on your daily rate and the number of days dedicated to the project. These days can be taken during the summer and off-contract periods throughout the year.
For student hiring, we ask all Principal Investigators (PIs) to refer to the CSUCI Student Employment Guidelines for Student Assistants/Work study (PDF, 266KB) to appropriately budget an hourly wage that is commensurate to the responsibilities.
Staff salary and classifications will be dictated by the CSU salary schedule and the roles’ responsibilities. During the proposal development process, we may need a position description to appropriately identify the classification and salary range.
Fringe Benefits
CSUCI charges actual fringe benefit costs to all funded projects. CSUCI’s full fringe benefits package includes applicable payroll taxes, OASDI, Health/Dental/Life/Vision insurance, disability, unemployment, Medicare, flex cash, insurance deductible, sabbatical and retirement contributions.
Payroll taxes are estimated at 10% for faculty additional pay and student summer pay.
Travel
Travel costs typically include conference and meeting travel (including airfare, registration, lodging, ground transportation, per diem and meals) and local mileage. Rates are based off CSUCI Travel Policy.
Equipment
The Federal Government defines equipment as “an item of non-expendable, tangible personal property, having a useful life of more than one year and an acquisition cost which equals or exceeds the lesser of the capitalization level established by the recipient organization for financial statement purposes, or $5,000.” CSUCI’s federally negotiated indirect cost rate agreement does not permit equipment to be burdened by indirect costs.
Participant Support Costs
Participant support costs are defined by the Federal Government as “direct costs for items such as stipends or subsistence allowances, travel allowances, and registration fees paid to or on behalf of participants or trainees (but not employees) in connection with conferences, or training projects.”
A participant is the recipient of a service or training opportunity funded by a sponsored project. Participants may be, but are not limited to, students, scholars, or teachers. Participant support is funding provided to help defray the costs to participants taking part in the training or research activity. Participants cannot be employees where funding is provided in exchange for performing responsibilities.
Other Direct Costs
This budget category can contain several other items; including, but not limited to, materials and supplies, publication costs, consultant services, and sub-awards.
Materials and Supplies are expendable items necessary to carry out the work of the sponsored project. General purpose office supplies and materials used by departments for routine activities should not be directly charged to an award, unless specifically permitted by the sponsor. This includes items such as office supplies, cleaning materials, and copy paper.
Costs of computing devices may be charged as a direct cost to an award when such devices are essential and allocable to an award, but not necessarily solely dedicated to its performance. If the acquisition cost of a computer is greater than $5,000, it should be categorized as equipment.
Contractual or Consultant Services
These are costs associated with an individual or business whose expertise is required to perform the project. Services are temporary and special or highly technical.
Subawards
For more information, please see Subawards.