Definitions:

NSTP – Negotiated Salary Trial Program

SBS – Scale-based Salary [an individual’s regular scale salary rate, plus any off-scale]. This does NOT include administrative stipends.

NSC – Negotiated Salary Component [the salary component beyond the SBS that must be negotiated annually]

TUCS – Total UC Salary [this is the salary rate, consisting of the participant’s SBS plus the NSC]

Guidelines for Participants

If I participate in the NSTP, will I be able to obtain summer salary? Answer

How is the NSTP different from the concept of summer salary?  Does this mean that we could increase our 9 month salary by up to 30% from (non-state) extramural funds? Answer

Are faculty in the Teaching Professor series (Lecturers with Security of Employment) eligible to participate in the NSTP? Answer

Are there any possible exceptions for late applications (e.g. because of receiving a grant after the deadline)? Answer

Guidelines for Departments and Divisions

CONTINGENCY FUND

What cost account code should be used for the transfer of the 10% contingency fund contributions? This will help us determine if there are any unrestricted extramural funds to which this type of expense would be considered an allocable cost. These funds don’t really represent salary. The 10% contingency fund contribution seems to be more of a fee to participate in the NSTP. Because these contributions are just 10% of a negotiated component dollar amount they can’t be represented as effort towards research (i.e. salary) on an extramural fund.  If it will not be charged via an account code, how does the campus plan to allocate contingency funds from the PI FOAPAL to the divisional FOAPAL. Answer

On the fund manager worksheet the calculation includes benefits cost on the 10% contingency. Can we get clarification from APO on if this 10% contingency is going to be charged as salary and therefore we need to estimate benefits costs as well or if we can just do a transfer of funds not charged as salary/benefits expense? Answer

What types of expenditures [from reserve fund surpluses] would be appropriate or not. What have other campuses done with reserve funds? Answer

PROPOSAL EVALUATION AND REVIEW

Training Compliance

How does a department chair obtain information with regard to training compliance and/or what are the particular trainings that a professor must obtain? Answer

Funding

Can NSF funds be used to support participation in the NSTP? Answer

Can we include an estimated 3% increase as of July 1st when calculating the faculty salary rates? We don’t usually know what the actual yearly faculty salary increase will be (~3% or more) prior to July 1st nor do we usually know all of the review and merit increase outcomes before 7/1 that may result in increased salary rates for some faculty. Answer

The guidelines say that “funding must be awarded and in hand prior to June 30 of the current fiscal year to be considered for that year’s application”. Why is this so important, especially because it may disqualify R01 recipients who receive annual increments every October 1 which must be expended in that fund year? Answer

The Procedures state that the fund source must cover the entire year. Grant award dates do not line up with the academic year. It's likely that a faculty member may have the grant funds to participate but will be pulling from 2 or more fund sources to guarantee the full year of funding. Is that an issue? Answer

What does “funding must be awarded and in-hand—deposited to a UCSC account—prior to June 30th” mean? If an award is released by OSP does that qualify? We ask because the majority of our contract and grant funds are issued on a reimbursement basis i.e. UCSC Extramural Funds Accounting invoices the award sponsor on a monthly or quarterly basis for costs that have already occurred on the award. The campus essentially fronts the funds to cover the costs and then is reimbursed by the sponsors. Answer

DivData

How should divisions enter the NSTP rate in divdata? Answer