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Budget Justifications

A budget justification is a narrative explanation of each of the components of the budget, which justifies the cost in terms of the proposed work. The explanations should focus on how this budget item contributes to the aims of the project and how the estimated costs in the budget were calculated. All budget line items should be justified. Don't assume that anything will be “obvious” to reviewers.

Personnel

Provide information for all roles on the project, regardless of whether or not the individual's salary will be funded by this award. Include the name of the individual (or TBN for to-be-named), role title (e. g. Principal Investigator, Co-investigator, Lab Technician, etc.), percent of effort or person-months being devoted to this project, and a one or two sentence description of the role responsibilities in relation to the specific aims of the project.

For NIH proposals, personnel effort should be converted to "person-months," in accordance with NIH policy effective May 10, 2006.

Specify when the salaries are increased by an annual inflationary factor or adjusted due to a change in effort in future years.

Indicate how the fringe benefits were calculated.

Administrative and clerical salaries, in particular, must be justified to explain why administrative services dedicated to this project are necessary. Federal guidelines (OMB Circular A-21) expect administrative salaries to be treated as F&A costs. Direct charging of these costs may be allowable when individuals involved in a “major project” can be specifically identified with the project or activity. "Major project" is defined as a project that requires an extensive amount of administrative or clerical support, which is significantly greater than the routine level of such services provided by academic departments. Some examples are:

• Large, complex programs such as General Clinical Research Centers, Primate Centers, Program Projects, and other grants and contracts that entail assembling and managing teams of investigators from a number of institutions.
• Projects which involve extensive data accumulation, analysis and entry, surveying, tabulation, cataloging, searching literature, and reporting (such as epidemiological studies, clinical trials, and retrospective clinical records studies).
• Projects that require making travel and meeting arrangements for large numbers of participants, such as conferences and seminars.

Consultants

Provide the consultant(s)' name, institution, and an explanation of the area of advice the consultant will provide. If a consulting fee is to be paid, explain how it was calculated. (for example, $X/day x # of days)


Collaborating investigators who will be involved in the execution of the project, are not consulting and should be included in the personnel (for UMB employees) or subcontracting (if from outside UMB) sections of the budget.

Equipment

Only items of equipment that meet the criteria of “capital equipment” should be budgeted in this category. At UMB, capital equipment is defined as durable goods with a purchase price of at least $5,000 per item and a useful life of at least one year. (A different cost-threshold should only be used if the sponsor guidelines specifically define another amount.)


Specify the type of equipment, and if possible specific model and vendor name, and provide a vendor quote. If a quote is not available, indicate how the amount budgeted was determined (e.g. catalogue or website, etc.) Explain how this equipment will be used in the project and why it is necessary to purchase equipment dedicated to this project rather than use shared resources.

Travel

Specify the purpose of the travel to be funded, number of trips and number of individuals traveling, specific destinations, if possible, and explain how the costs were estimated. Travel costs are limited by the University policies on travel reimbursement even where sponsor travel guidelines may be more liberal. Explain the necessity for this travel in relation to the project.


If foreign travel is requested, the justification should all explain why it is necessary to travel to this destination. Estimates should be based on use of U.S. flag carrier airfares. Foreign travel is defined as any travel outside of Canada and the U.S. and its territories and possessions. However, for an organization located outside Canada and the U.S. and its territories and possessions, foreign travel means travel outside that country.

Supplies

All non-permanent, disposable supplies such as chemicals, drugs, lab glassware, syringes, notebooks, computer diskettes etc. fall into this category. Animal care costs and small equipment purchases costing less than $5,000 per item should also be included in the supplies category.


Provide a list of the types of supplies needed on the project and explain how the costs were estimated.

Patient Care Costs

Routine and ancillary patient care costs for medical services on either an inpatient or outpatient basis are allowable if there is a need to treat patients.


If inpatient and outpatient charges incident to the research are requested, list the names of the hospitals or clinics involved and the amount requested for each. Indicate whether these hospitals or clinics have a currently effective DHHS-negotiated patient care rate agreement and, if not, what basis will be used for calculating charges. If there is "limited" patient care activity that does not require the establishment of a DHHS-negotiated rate, an institutional patient care rate may be approved by the sponsor.

Itemize the estimated costs including the number of patient days, estimated costs per day, and costs per test or treatment.

Patient care costs should not include travel, lodging, subsistence or donor/volunteer fees. These costs should be requested under the "Other Expense" category. Requests for consultant physician fees should be included under "Consultants."

Other

This category typically includes publication costs, equipment maintenance expenses, minor fee-for-services purchase orders, long distance telephone costs, postage, printing, copying. Tuition expenses are also included in this category. Itemize the types of expenses, explain why these are needed on the project and how the costs were calculated.

Deviation in Number of Modules

Indicate in which year(s) you are requesting a different number of modules and describe why this is necessary. Do not quote specific dollar amounts, merely explain the cost that does not fit into the number of modules needed in the other years and justify why it is necessary to meet the goals of the project.

Consortium Costs (aka subcontractors)

Provide the collaborating institution's name(s), indicate whether it is domestic or foreign, and state their total costs (direct plus F&A) for each year, rounded to the nearest $1,000. Subcontract budgets do not need to be in $25,000 increments. Provide a personnel role description for each of the personnel included in the subcontractor's costs. Do not quote any specific dollar amounts. Do not include the subcontractor's itemized budget or checklist in the application. Do include a letter of intent to enter into a consortium signed by the subcontracting principal investigator and the other institution's authorized representative (typically their sponsored projects office).

(The total cost for the subcontractor's budget is included in the UMB requested number of modules.)

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