PERSONNEL ACTIVITY REPORT (PAR) INFORMATION

GENERAL INFORMATION

WHO MUST COMPLETE PAR FORMS?

PAR forms must be completed for:

REPORTING PERIODS  

BASE EFFORT

This represents effort required to fulfill the employee’s obligation to UCSF. It relates to compensated activity and must total 100% even if the appointment is less than full time. Compensation for incidental work … such as intra-university consulting, honoraria, and lump-sum payments, work unrelated to base effort (e.g. UCSF extension courses), by agreement payments and overtime is not included.

SALARY AND EFFORT CATEGORIES

Sponsored Projects (funds 18200-18999, 20500-33999, 57000-59999, 81000-85999, and 87000-88999).

Sponsored projects represent activities for instruction, organized research, and other sponsored activities funded from external sources through grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements (refer to the following web site for more information regarding sponsored projects please refer to : http://www.research.ucsf.edu/cg/memo/idc.htm).
Also included is effort committed (cost sharing) to sponsored projects but paid from non-sponsored sources. PAR forms are required for individuals paid directly from and/or having committed cost shared effort on federal and federal flow through sponsored projects.

All Other Non Sponsored Activity

All other effort, including instruction, organized research, departmental research, clinical activity, and public service funded from non-sponsored project funds, except for cost shared effort, is reported here. Cost shared effort is reported as part of sponsored projects…..

COMPLETING THE PAR FORM

Section I “Percentage of Salary”

Section I of the PAR report reflects actual pay as charged to each DPA-Fund for the reporting period. PARs should be reviewed by the employee or responsible official to ensure the payroll information on the form accurately reflects how the employee was paid on each individual DPA/Fund . For sponsored projects, the effort-based salary, (compensation received from UCSF in consideration of work performed) charged to each individual DPA/Fund should be compared to effort expended on the corresponding project. A Payroll Expenditure Transfer (PET) must be submitted to correct salary distributions whenever the percentage of salary for a specific sponsored account exceeds the effort devoted to the corresponding project. Other considerations during this review are:

NOTE: When comparing the percentage of effort-based pay to effort expended all dollars reflecting 0.00% time on the Distribution of Payroll Expense (DPE) form (e.g., “By Agreement” amounts) should be excluded from the calculation.

Section II “Percentage of Effort”

Once the payroll distribution data has been reviewed (and corrected if necessary), the employee or responsible official should reflect the estimated percentage of actual effort expended during the PAR reporting period on each individual DPA/Fund in the column under Section II. It is important to ensure that:

SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS:

Example 1:

Committed Cost Sharing:

Committed cost sharing represents effort or other program costs related to a sponsored agreement that is contributed by someone other than the sponsor and quantified in the grant/contract proposal. Committed cost sharing is further classified as either mandatory (required by the sponsor as a condition of the award) or voluntary (not required by the sponsor). The federal government requires that all committed cost sharing be captured and, if in the form of contributed effort, the effort be certified. As a result, employees with committed cost sharing effort need to include and certify the cost shared effort on the PAR report as follows:

  1. Under the “Sponsored Projects” column write in the DPA/Fund number and fund title of the award that has committed cost sharing (for cases where there are also direct salary charges this information should already be reflected).
  2. Write in the percentage of effort expended during the PAR reporting period next to the DPA/Fund in Section II (for cases where there are also direct salary charges, the committed cost sharing effort should be added to the effort corresponding to the direct salary charges).
  3. …Reduce effort from the DPA/Fund under “All Other Funding Sources” that paid for the committed cost sharing effort on the sponsored project.

Example 2:

Employees Paid in Excess of the NIH Salary Cap:

The percent of salary reflected on the PAR does not calculate correctly for employees paid in excess of the NIH Salary Cap. The employees paid in excess of the NIH Salary Cap need to certify the correct percentage of effort and not the percentage of salary. Note: Individual DPA/Funds subject to the NIH cap will report a salary percentage less than actual effort while DPA/Funds that are not subject to the NIH cap will report a salary percentage larger than actual effort expended on the project.

Employees paid above the salary cap need to certify their PAR reports as follows:

  1. Write in the actual percentage of effort expended during the PAR reporting period next to each individual DPA/Fund in Section II for all sponsored projects.
  2. Reduce effort from the appropriate non NIH capped DPA/Fund(s) so the total effort equals 100%.

Example 3:

Employees With Less than 100% Appointment:

The percentage of salary reflected on the PAR (Section I) represents the total percent paid to the employee on each individual DPA/Fund as a percentage of total compensation received by the employee over the PAR reporting period. The calculated percentage of salary therefore has been normalized to 100%.

Employees paid less than 100% need to certify their PAR reports as follows:

  1. Verify the percentage of effort based salary (Section I) on each individual DPA/Fund represents the proper annualized salary by dividing the salary for each individual DPA/Fund by the total actual effort based salary.
  2. Write in the actual percentage of normalized (100%) effort expended during the PAR reporting period next to each individual DPA/Fund in Section II for all sponsored projects by dividing the actual percentage of effort per DPA/Fund by the total FTE appointment. For example:

EFFORT CERTIFICATION

For faculty and academic employees (title code 4000 or less with the exception of 0000-0798), the PAR form must be signed by the employee or responsible academic official having first hand knowledge of the work performed. For department chairs, deans, etc., PAR forms must be signed by a faculty member of higher rank. NO BUSINESS MANAGERS OR ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF SHOULD CERTIFY PARs FOR FACULTY AND ACADEMIC EMPLOYEES. The responsible academic official must certify that the work was performed and distribution of effort among the individual sponsored DPA-Funds is reasonable.

For non-academic employees, the PAR form must be certified by the employee or a responsible administrative official (e.g., Supervisor, Business Manager, Principal Investigator) verifying that the work was performed and the distribution of effort for each individual sponsored DPA/Fund is reasonable.

In addition to signing the PAR form in the lower left hand corner, individuals certifying PARs should also print their name alongside the title.

If adjustments to any of the information on the PAR are required, line out incorrect information with a single line and make the necessary adjustment(s) to the right.

 WHEN IS A PAYROLL COST TRANSFER REQUIRED?

  1. When the percentage of effort certified for each individual DPA/Fund in the sponsored projects portion of Section II is less than the percentage of effort based salary reflected in Section I of the PAR (except when this is the direct result of adjustments due to the NIH salary cap and/or cost sharing commitments for a federal project funded from a non federal (including federal flow through) sponsored project,
    OR
  2. When any percentage of effort on an individual sponsored DPA/Fund is decreased (except for cost sharing as noted in 1. above).

NOTE: Every attempt should be made to process adjustments or transfers of salaries and wages before effort has been certified or during the effort certification process. Payroll expenditure adjustments made subsequent to the certification of effort are problematic and often the target of audit consideration and disallowances.

INVALID PARS

A PAR is considered invalid if it is:

Mailing PARs to Departments:

EMF sends PARs to the departments for certification as follows:

Faculty and professional employees (six-month)

Fall PARs

Mailed on/about March 15th

Spring PARs

Mailed on/about September 15th

All classified staff employees (3-month)

Summer PARs

Mailed on/about December 15th

Fall PARs

Mailed on/about March 15th

Winter PARs

Mailed on/about June 15th

Spring PARs

Mailed on/about September 15th

  1. Extramural Funds Accounting sends PARs to the academic departments for completion. In addition to the PARs, each department receives a listing of all employees for whom PARs were generated, and a notice of the date the completed PARs must be returned to Extramural Funds.
  2. Departments must return all PARs in order for the UCSF PAR system to meet federal requirements.
  3. Upon receipt by the department, the PARs should be reviewed by an individual(s) knowledgeable of the department’s payroll activity to ensure the payroll information reflected on the PAR forms is correct. Changes made to the employee's appointment, distribution, and/or Payroll Expenditure Adjustments should be reflected in Section I “% of Salary” distribution printed on the PAR form. If any of the payroll percentages are incorrect they must be corrected by changing the appointment, distribution, and/or completing a payroll expense transfer.
  4. Once the payroll distribution data has been reviewed (and corrected if necessary), the employee or responsible official should indicate the percentage of effort in Section II "% of Effort" For each sponsored DPA/Fund. When completing the effort distribution section of the PAR, it is important to remember the following:
    1. The total of the effort distribution must equal 100% even if the employee has a less than full-time appointment or is on a split appointment.
    2. The percent of effort reported for Sponsored Projects must be at least equal to the direct salary charges listed in Section I plus any committed cost shared effort for each sponsored DPA/Fund. If the percentage of effort reported for a sponsored project is less than the percentage of payroll charged to that project, a payroll adjustment may be necessary.
  5. Once the effort distribution section on the PAR (Section II) has been completed, proper certification must be obtained. Faculty and professional employees usually complete and sign their own PAR forms. PAR forms for non-professional employees are usually completed and certified by the employee's supervisor or other responsible official. When a non-professional employee has a split appointment in two or more units, the PAR is signed either by the employee or supervisors from each unit.

    A "responsible official" is normally an academic or non-academic employee (usually in a supervisory position) who:
    • Has comprehensive and first-hand knowledge of the employee's activities.
    • Has exercised suitable means of verification that effort was performed pursuant to distribution of payroll expense.
    • Can knowledgeably complete the effort distribution of the PAR form with reasonable accuracy
    If a "responsible official" must complete and certify a PAR form for a faculty member, the responsible official must be a faculty member of higher rank.
  6. Once the PAR form has been completed and signed, it should be checked for accuracy. The department PAR Coordinator should make sure the effort distribution totals 100% and the PAR has been signed by an appropriate individual. The yellow copy of the PAR form is retained by the academic department and the original (white) forwarded to Extramural Funds.
  7. Extramural Funds Accounting reviews the PAR forms, provides follow-up as necessary, and arranges for data storage.

EXEMPTED DOS CODES

Certain payments through payroll are not extracted for PAR reporting.

The Description of Service (DOS) codes that identify the type of wages paid are on the appointment line and on the payroll ledger next to the period end date.

Following is a list of excluded DOS codes:

BYA

By Agreement (confirm w/Alexis/Lana)

IAP

Incentive Award Payment

STP

Stipend

TRM

Terminal Vacation Pay

VLT

Vacation Leave Transfer

WOS

Work Without Salary

PAR Checklist (PDF file)

Sample PAR Form (Excel file)

Sample PAR Form (fillable PDF file)

(Documents in PDF format can be best viewed using Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0)

 

This page last updated on: Thursday February 01 2007