Faculty Focus on Research: Salary Certification to Ease Administrative Burden

The FST Leadership Council recently signed off on a decision
to transition UVA from effort reporting to salary certification as part of finance
transformation’s continuous improvement efforts.

After the review of several options, including Workday’s Effort
Certification, the recommendation is to implement Huron Employee Compensation
Compliance (ECC) to replace our current Effort@ system. Since UVA will already
implement Huron’s pre-award system (to replace ResearchUVA), we were able to
negotiate a competitive price to include ECC as well. Final security-related
sign-off is pending UVA ITS review of Huron security information gathered
through a survey. The initial conversation between ITS security experts and
Huron representatives went well, with ITS satisfied with the information Huron
provided.

If all goes to plan, Huron ECC will be implemented after
Workday Financials goes live on July 1, 2022. The first salary certification
cycle using ECC would take place in the February-March 2023 timeframe. Huron
ECC has been implemented at other universities, some of whom transitioned to Workday
Financials, so integration between ECC and Workday should be seamless. The
transition from effort to salary certification will align UVA with other R1
institutions that are looking at various ways to reduce administrative burden
for both faculty and the institution, without compromising on compliance.

In late 2014, the federal government provided updated
guidance on standards of documentation for salaries charged to federal awards
and removed examples referencing effort certification. In 2015, UVA’s
Organizational Excellence Office, Office of Sponsored Programs, and Financial
Office of Compliance conducted focus groups with 110 faculty members in five
schools. The major themes were consistent across the schools, and there was an
overwhelming plea to improve Recon@UVA and Effort@UVA to reduce the associated
burdens. In 2016, a consulting firm also evaluated ways to increase efficiency
in federal compliance areas with a main focus on effort reporting. When the
Finance Strategic Transformation project began, it seemed the opportune moment
to act on these insights to better preserve the research time for UVA's esteemed faculty.

Office of Sponsored Programs Director of Post Award Urmila
Bajaj, also the FST grants management co-lead, has long been an advocate of
shifting to salary certification. Bajaj says, “We have heard from our faculty;
they’re spending a lot more time on administrative tasks instead of research
work. Federal funding is public money; we understand that we need to adhere to
the federal compliance requirements. We can achieve that by creating an ethical
and compliant environment, utilizing efficient systems supported by clear policies
and guiding principles without overburdening the faculty and staff.  This transition to salary certification is one
area where faculty and staff are going to appreciate UVA’s stand to reduce the
admin burden drastically.”

While the change has not been formally announced yet, the
FST team has communicated with departments, which have shared updates with
their research faculty. Bajaj explains that faculty are enthusiastic about what
they have heard so far.

Keep an eye on the blog for more information about this
decision, and you can always stay up to date on project-related decisions with
the FST Decision Log.