Acceptance of federal awards, either direct or indirect, obligates UNO to comply with the federally mandated rules, regulations, and guidelines as they apply to sponsored projects.
The Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards, commonly called "Uniform Guidance" (UG) outlining the guiding principles was implemented on December 26, 2014.
Verifying Personnel Costs
The university uses an after-the-fact methodology to meet regulatory requirements for verifying personnel costs charged directly to federal and federal flow-through funds, as well as for reporting cost-sharing commitments. Verification at the University of Nebraska uses the Project Verification Statement (PVS) methodology and is required of all university employees whose salaries, wages, and/or benefits are federally funded, directly or indirectly, or cost-shared to a sponsored project.
Under this method, the PVS process uses the internal control system of the SAP Human Resources (HR) module, housing all payroll/personnel costs for the University of Nebraska. The PVS process extracts actual personnel expenses from the SAP HR module and places them into online, user-friendly, drill-down reports and ensures all personal service costs are captured, reviewed, documented, and verified in an accurate and timely manner.
Verification Process
The verification process includes an intricate review by the responsible person, or principal investigator, of personnel costs charged to federal or federal pass-through projects, as well as those that involve cost share, to assess whether the amount charged is reasonable for the work performed.
The process is project-based and will capture all federal-associated personnel costs and/or cost share posted to a particular project. The project-based review allows the responsible person(s), or principal investigator(s) to review and verify the project as a whole for the deemed period of performance.
The system is flexible to allow campuses to generate PVSs based on a frequency of their choosing. Email reminders notify recipients that PVSs require action, ensuring timely review and verification.
History
The university's methodology was changed in 2019 when the University of Nebraska collaborated efforts to move from an individual-based personnel activity reporting system (known as effort reporting) to a project (cost)-based method. This policy replaces the previous Personnel Activity Reporting Policy dated 01/01/2017.