Department administrators must work with PIs to be aware of salary cap limits on all sponsored awards and, if necessary, record cost share for salary amounts that surpass the identified cap. The SPAR application automatically calculates cost sharing only for DHHS accounts. However, Pitt receives funding from various sponsors, each with their own unique salary caps. Consequently, administrators must manually record cost sharing for these non-DHHS awards to ensure compliance.
If employees in your area were part of the recent FLSA employee type conversion, be sure to thoroughly review their effort statements for the Spring academic period (Jan-Apr 2024). Once the new payroll runs for these employees, they may have two effort statements to accommodate the two types of pay received during the period of performance. If adjustments to effort percentages are necessary, it is imperative to update the SPAR for Salaried effort and the TEAM form (or SWCT for retroactive changes) for Biweekly effort. Should you observe unusual percentages on an effort statement (such as negative percentages or percentages exceeding 100%), contact SPARhelp for guidance and assistance.
If faculty in your area have a less-than-annual appointment and are planning to work outside their appointment period, please process all summer appointment information timely to ensure that payroll is paid in the month the work is performed. This is necessary to maintain the accuracy of SPAR payroll distributions and effort reporting information.
If you have concerns about an effort statement’s presentation or anticipate a SPAR modification to the effort statement, place the effort statement on hold to prevent an inappropriate certification. Be aware that an effort statement can only be certified twice. The PI certification window is not extended for time spent on hold, therefore, please remove the hold as soon as possible. PIs whose personal effort statement is on hold will not be able to certify any effort statement for which they are responsible. When the hold is removed, the PEC and all associated PIs will receive a system generated email, found here.