BIOETHICS

The Bioethics Imperative XXV
Faculty Effort Certifications in a Sea of Change: Unsettled Issues in Current Compliance Practices

“Mokita”: The truth we all know and agree not to talk about. Papua New Guinea

At the core of compliance is each individual faculty member’s obligation. In this column I present the first three of my eight “Catch-22s” of Effort Certification (EC) compliance. In the next issue I’ll deliver the final five. You’ll see that I paint scenarios that end in confusion and that I provide no answers, as there seem to be none at present. Unfortunately for us all, you may find additional Catch-22s of your own.

1. What is total effort (a.k.a. how to lie with denominators)? The standard “9 to 5” job is 40 hours a week. Total effort, the denominator for calculating faculty effort, is a slippery entity when one is not on a strictly monitored time- clock and when the time- clock varies with workload and an individual can set their own denominator at will. Lucky us, in academia we get to vary all three. “The expression of research effort … will almost always be inconsistent with A-21 if the individual in question works more than 40 h/week” (1). Let’s take an example. Ova Verked Unapyed’s workweek varies from 40 to 80 hours, veering to the latter far more often than she would like. She has no idea if she averages out evenly over the year or if, for example, she is always a “slacker” in the summer. If she sets her base salary at 60 hours a week and she really works 70 hours a week in that quarter (almost 120 percent effort), are her ECs noncompliant? Any accountant would tell you that 120 percent effort is impossible. If she needs to write a grant or attends a meeting, does she “fake it” on her ECs or submit the grant unfinished and leave her conversations in mid-sentence in order to remain in compliance? How will the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) react if her co-PI on a grant for which they are equally paid sets a different base of total effort so that one of them looks like they are putting in 50 percent effort and the other is putting in 25 percent effort but being paid the same amount? Ahhh, percentages are so confusing! In practical terms, you need to consult with your institution to comply with the timeframe over which it calculates faculty effort (FE)—that is, over what time period (quarterly or semiannually are the most common)—as well as to determine your total effort to calculate your FE.

2. What is base salary? In determining FE, base salary must be spread across total effort. This becomes problematic when there are multiple components of income for a given faculty member (e.g., medical faculty, administrative duties, endowment, a special lecture, an overload workload that temporarily increases your salary). For example, there might be 10 percent funding of medical salary from the state, 50 percent from clinical revenues, and 40 percent from a physicians’ fund. A second example: You have a nine-month appointment and then obtain a book deal that pays your summer salary. Should your FE be 100 percent for 12 months, that is, does the institution own you and therefore your book deal, too? This depends on your university’s copyright policies, and it may also depend on whether or not a book deal is classified as “outside work” (a contract with you as an individual) or as part of your regular university responsibilities (a contract with the university). If your pay for the book is an honorarium, your FE does not need to include it. However, if the honorarium is part of your salary, then this becomes part of your FE at the university. There is an exclusion when the work is “outside work,” but outside work cannot be greater than some set portion of your week, commonly one day per week. This may or may not be considered part of your FE. Again, check on the specifics with your institution to understand what is included in base salary. Complicated enough for you yet?

3. If I do the work today, can I pay myself at another time—for example, over the summer? The potential Catch-22 is that if the university is paying you during this same time period, this is not considered “outside work,” that is, you cannot “double dip.” For example, if your deadline is during the academic year and you are fully compensated for your effort during this period, you cannot pay yourself at another time for that work. Your FE cannot be 125 percent for any period of time because the OIG considers this kind of “shell game” illegal (http://www.aspb.org/newsletter/janfeb06/10mandoli23.cfm); you must account for all effort in the time period in which that effort was expended.

Next time: The final five of my Eight “Catch-22s” of Effort Certification compliance.

Dina Mandoli
mandoli@u.washington.edu

I thank Brent Stewart (chair of the Faculty Council on Research, University of Washington) for permission to quote from the FCR report on FECs, Donna Kerr (secretary of the faculty, University of Washington) for information about Shared Governance, and two administrators at UW who provided detailed input and depth to the issues and who wish to remain anonymous.

References
1. FCR Report to the Faculty Senate regarding Faculty Effort Certification, January 19, 2006.