Effort reporting is a federal requirement to certify that salaries and wages charged to a sponsored account are reasonable in relation to the actual work performed.

For institutes of higher education, effort reporting does not make much sense. It has been a source of continuing friction between universities and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) since 1979, when the requirement to report “for 100% of the activity for which the employee is compensated and which is required in fulfillment of the employee’s obligations to the institution” was added to OMB Circular A-21. The language further required that the reporting system “reflect the ratio of each of the activities which comprise the total workload of the individual….”

For an employee who works 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, and who receives hourly compensation, effort reporting is easier. We can look at their 8 hour work day and determine what portion of time was committed to certain activities.  For a faculty member not paid by the hour, who juggles teaching, research, mentoring of students, writing, professional activities, Institutional service, and more, tracking of effort quickly becomes complicated.

I vividly remember an NCURA meeting, somewhere around 1986, in which a room full of about 100 research administrators was talking with the head of OMB about the problems with viewing faculty effort in neatly defined categories. The OMB person was not moved at all. The woman standing next to me, someone from a large institution that was one of those Pillars of the Community, leaned over and whispered, “I am sure when he shits it comes out in little cellophane packages.”

People, that about covers it. Effort reporting was created by people who 1) are not faculty, 2) are not employed by institutions of higher education, 3) who appear to have 8-5 jobs that do the same thing every day, on schedule, and 4) who have to be accountable to people in Congress, who know even less about faculty life.

So, universities everywhere continue to engage in this decades-old discussion with OMB. In the meantime, if we accept federal awards, we also accept effort reporting. End of story.

In January of 2018, we were fortunate to make the effort certification process much easier, for most units, with the Huron ecrt system. In one quarter, we have gone from      ~ 60% certified statements to 99.7% certified. We still have bugs in our processes to work out, to be sure, but this is a phenomenal beginning for keeping us in compliance with the feds.

We also realize that the concept of effort and effort reporting are somewhat new to parts of the University. Information about effort reporting and the ecrt system can be found at: https://ecrt.colostate.edu/csu/. This site includes links to the Policies around effort. We know that there are still questions surrounding summer salary, de minimis effort, 1% minimum effort on projects, 95% maximum effort commitment for faculty, etc. and we are addressing those questions with FAQs, RAMAround discussions, and meetings with departments and units.  We are happy to come chat with you and your departments on these topics.