Published June 18, 2021
Washington University in St. Louis has reached agreement with our Federal cognizant agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, on predetermined Fringe Benefit and Facilities and Administrative (F&A) cost rates. This new rate agreement is effective July 1, 2021, and it covers fiscal years 2022 through 2025.
To allow Workday stabilization and to mitigate risks with the heavy July proposal deadlines, RMS will be updated on July 19, 2021, with the new fringe benefit rates/methodology, F&A rates and changes necessary to integrate with Workday.
Please continue to use the current rates in RMS until the system is updated on July 19.
Fringe Changes
- Effective July 1, 2021, fringes will be charged as a flat rate based on job/appointment type (academic, staff, postdoc, clinical fellow, etc.) and funding source (federal/state/local or other). Dependent tuition will not be charged to state and local sponsors.
- RMS will automatically apply the correct fringe rate based on HR and sponsor information. This can be changed if necessary.
- Fringes will be charged only on the first $200,000 of base salary per calendar year. This is the fringe cap.
- Once the fringe cap is reached by total base pay during a calendar year, fringes can no longer be charged to a grant even if there are remaining months of allowable salary. Note: Charging of fringe benefits will restart at the beginning of new calendar year.
Danforth Personnel with Salaries over $200,000
Fringe amounts for Danforth personnel earning over the fringe cap of $200,000 who have effort only in academic or summer months are not being calculated correctly in RMS. The University is working with the vendor to implement a fix.
Until the issue can be resolved, fringe amounts should be manually calculated and entered in RMS using the fringe calculation spreadsheet (to be released on July 19). A demo of how to complete this spreadsheet is available beginning at 38:20 of this STAR session recording. To receive STAR credit for viewing the full recording, see below.
Resources
- Watch the recording of the STAR Hot Topic: New Fringe Methodology for STAR credit
- Fringe Calculation Spreadsheet tool for manual fringe calculation and entry (Available on July 19)
- A quick guide to completing the spreadsheet tool will be available on July 19.
Workday Refactoring Changes
- New personnel hired after June 1 will not be available in RMS until July 19. If needed, add these individuals as a To Be Named (TBN). See the RMS User Guide “Add a To Be Named (TBN, TBD)” section beginning on page 119.
- Between June 27 and July 18, RMS will contain salary data as of June 26.
- During proposal development, on the WU Setup Questions tab in the Award Cost Center field, enter the Cost Center where the award line (fund/account) should be setup in Workday. This must be formatted as CC followed by 7 numbers. (e.g. CC0000000) This is sent to Workday by SPA at the time of award. Make sure the correct cost center is entered in the proper format.
- The degree format will change to align with Workday. (e.g. BA will display as B)
Questions?
Contact Teri Medley at medleyt@wustl.edu.