Managing your Grant

The Administrative Support Program connects Principal Investigators (PIs) with trained campus staff who can provide short-term, flexible administrative support. This program is designed to help PIs manage peak workloads, seasonal needs, or time‑sensitive administrative tasks without the need to hire additional staff.

By shifting routine administrative work to experienced support staff, the program allows PIs to focus more fully on research, projects, and academic priorities.

Available Support

Trained campus staff are available to assist with a range of common administrative needs, including:

• Travel processing
• Purchasing and reimbursements
• Hiring support
• Payroll assistance

How it Works

• Access flexible, short-term support when workloads increase
• Benefit from quick turnaround with staff who are already payroll-active
• No long-term commitment—use only the hours you need
• Charges are applied directly to your grants, contracts, or discretionary trusts

Sign-Up!

1. Submit a request
   Email your request to spf-admin-support-pool@humboldt.edu. 

          Please include:

          *A brief description of the support needed

          *Estimated number of hours

          *Desired start date and schedule

2. Get matched with support
   Requests are addressed on a first-come, first-served basis, depending on staff availability and capacity.
3. Get support
   Once matched, the support staff member is appointed through Kronos and works under your supervision.

Release Time (or Salaries Reimbursed) is time granted to faculty by his/her college to pursue research or other scholarly endeavors. Generally, Release Time is determined and approved during the Pre-Award phase of a grant proposal. Once the faculty member has the approval of their college for their Release Time, this information is incorporated into their grant proposal. The faculty member’s Pre-Award Specialist will generate a Request for Release Time form that will be used to process the faculty member’s Release Time. 

When the faculty member is awarded their grant, Pre-Award will hand-off this Request for Release Time form with the award to the faculty member’s Post Award Analyst. The Post Award Analyst will then review the information to verify which year/term the Release Time will need to be processed. The Post Award Analyst is responsible for submitting the Request for Release Time form to accounts receivable for processing (for the appropriate time period).

Cost matching or “sharing” refers to the portion of project or program costs not borne by the funding agency. It includes all contributions, including cash and in-kind, that a recipient makes to an award. If the award is federal, only acceptable non-federal costs qualify as cost sharing and must conform to other necessary and reasonable provisions to accomplish the program objectives.

SPF disallows voluntary cost-share (any amount of cost-sharing above the funder requirement). If no fixed amount or percentage of cost-share is required, but cost-share is explicitly scored as a funding criterion, SPF considers this allowable, mandatory cost-share.

If a PI wants to demonstrate institutional commitments to the project, they can be described in application documents (outside of the budget / budget justification), without quantifying these commitments in monetary terms. This allows documentation of resource commitments without formal voluntary cost-sharing.

Documentation of cost match contributions to your SPF grant/contract must be provided on a quarterly basis. A SPF Grant Analyst will contact the P.I. quarterly via DocuSign to complete a Quarterly Cost-Match Documentation for SPF. Upon completion of this form, the PI may be responsible for submitting additional documentation, depending on the type of match. Cost matching that occurred within the quarter that is not documented within 60 days of the last day of that quarter cannot be counted toward the total contribution. It is important to collect and document all applicable cost match contributions in a timely manner.

University In-Kind: This includes effort being donated to the project by faculty via non-reimbursed timesheets, equipment, supplies, services, and other materials. A. Non-Reimbursed Timesheets would be used to certify effort being donated,  B. University In-Kind Equipment, Supplies, Services (along with supporting documentation) would be used for all other certifications.

University Cash: This includes university funds being provided in direct support of a grant/contract. Certification of this cost match would include a memo on department letterhead, along with the general ledger detail.

Foregone (waived) Indirect Costs: This includes overhead costs that are being donated to the grant/contract. Certification of this cost match is managed by the Post Award Grant Analyst.

3rd Party In-Kind: This includes effort, equipment, supplies, services and other materials being donated to a grant/contract by an outside entity. The C. Third Party Contribution (along with supporting documentation) would be used to certify this type of match.

3rd Party Cash: This includes all outside entities providing funds in direct support of a grant/contract. The C. Third Party Contribution (along with supporting documentation) could also be used to certify this type of match.

Technical Reports

In order to track progress, most awards require some type of reporting. Your Grant Analyst will review the specific reporting requirements, including due dates, format and/or use of sponsor provided templates, at the time of the PI Orientation. When you submit your required reports, please be sure to provide your SPF Grant Analyst with a copy for the award folder. All required reports need to be included in the award folder in order for SPF records to be considered complete by the auditors.

Financial Reports

Most awards require some type of financial reporting. In most cases, financial reports are prepared and submitted by SPF. Your Grant Analyst will review the specific reporting requirements of your project with you during PI Orientation. 

However, it is important  for you to know that changes to the awarded budget may create additional requirements by the sponsor in order to comply with the amended financial terms of the award. Copies or originals of all financial reports will be housed in the project award folder for the life of the project and, at minimum, at least three years thereafter.  

Effort Reports

Time and Effort certification is a receipt which is used to document the amount of effort actually spent on a project. A signed Effort Certification Statement by the employee on the project attests to the accuracy and completeness of the report. Effort shall be reflected as categories of activities expressed as a percentage distribution of total activities (including teaching) rather than the dollar amount compensated.

Time and Effort reporting is federally mandated and applies to SPF personnel with salary or wages charged to a project funded by Federal money. Auditors verify time and effort certifications to ensure the percent of salaries charged to the project are justified. Your effort certification will be prepared using the payroll timecards that you turned into SPF combined with time you worked as a faculty member through the State payroll, for each fall, spring semester, and summer term.

Our Compliance Officer, William Cook, is responsible for compiling this information and ensuring the Effort Certification Statement has been completed.

As your project’s period of performance comes to an end, you’ll begin receiving email notifications from our office at the 90, 60, & 30 day benchmarks. We’ll advise you to make sure to pay attention to the following action items:

• Submit any outstanding timesheets, absence reports, request for payments, etc.
• If you have any recurring charges (i.e. telecom/postage) make sure to transfer those charges to another active project.
• If you have a ProCard make sure it’s reconciled prior to the end of your project date.
• If you have any open P.O.’s make sure the order is received before the project end date.
• If you requested or are expecting a no-cost extension or modification please let your Grant Analyst know as soon as possible.
• Review your Budgetary Status Report (BSR) to ensure charges have been expensed correctly and clear any outstanding Travel Advances.
• If your project has cost-match requirements please make sure to submit that documentation to your Grant Analyst to include in the award file for audit purposes.
• Copies of all technical reports submitted thus far should be sent to your Grant Analyst to include in the award file for audit purposes.
• If you have Salaries Reimbursed, “Buy-Out” make sure your college has billed your grant.

If you have any questions as your project begins its "Closeout" process, or to request a no-cost extension from the funding agency, please contact your Grant Analyst.