The NIH sets guidelines for the determination of Institutional Base Salary in its Grants Policy Statement. Since VA salary (usually stated in 8ths) is paid through a separate federal paycheck, this compensation does not meet these guidelines to be included in Institutional Base Salary.

Memorandum of Understanding

Faculty with VA appointments must complete and submit, on at least an annual basis, a VA Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) documenting the VA effort commitment as well as the UMB and University Physicians, Inc. (Practice Plan) commitments. The School of Medicine has developed a standard format for these MOUs. This form is available by clicking on the following links in PDF format and Word format. For other questions about MOUs, please contact David Ingle at 6-2656.

VA 8ths

VA 8ths can change at any time as necessary. When the number of 8^th is you are allotted changes mid-year, this represents a corresponding change in your UMB appointment as well. When this happens, a new appointment letter with a revised Institutional Base Salary will be issued for you. Additionally, a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) will be issued. This new Institutional Base Salary should be used for future proposals.

If we are anticipating this change in appointment will occur because additional funding is received, this needs to be clearly disclosed in the proposal for the additional funding and the anticipated Institutional Base Salary should be used to request salary support.

VA 8ths can change at any time as necessary. When the number of 8^th is you are allotted changes mid-year, this represents a corresponding change in your UMB appointment as well. When this happens, a new appointment letter with a revised Institutional Base Salary will be issued for you. Additionally, a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) will be issued. This new Institutional Base Salary should be used for future proposals.

For current awards, your salary should be charged according to the percentage of University effort you are dedicating to each award multiplied by your new Institutional Base Salary. This percentage of University effort should be higher than what was committed in your proposals since the proposal was based on a larger total University effort. Your current sponsors should be notified of the effect the reduction of total University effort had on your effort commitment calculations

VA salary is excluded from the Universities definition of Institutional Base Salary. The salary base used for proposals is your Institutional Base Salary. Therefore, the salary base used to request salary support should exclude the VA salary.

In preparing proposals, specifically budget justifications, School of Medicine faculty who hold VA appointments should include the applicable standard statement (below) to disclose to sponsors the basis for effort percentage estimates and salary requests. 

For an individual with University, VA, and UPI appointments: 

Dr. ___________ has an appointment with the University of Maryland Baltimore (UMB) and with the Veterans Administration (VA). This arrangement is defined in a formal UMB-VA Joint Appointment Memorandum of Understanding. The institutional base salary used in this application represents the combined salary from both UMB and University Physicians, Inc. It does not include salary from the VA appointment. The percentage of effort in this application represents UMB effort on the proposed project in relation to professional effort for the dual UMB and University Physicians, Inc. appointments.

For an individual with University and VA appointments:

Dr. ___________ has an appointment with the University of Maryland Baltimore (UMB) and with the Veterans Administration (VA). This arrangement is defined in a formal UMB-VA Joint Appointment Memorandum of Understanding. The institutional base salary used in this application represents only the salary from UMB. It does not include salary from the VA appointment. The percentage of effort in this application represents UMB effort on the proposed project in relation to professional effort for the UMB appointment.

Sponsors that request Other Support pages are expecting to see all research listed, regardless of funding. Therefore, VA-funded research should be included. However, when you have both VA-funded research and research that is proposed through the University, you will need to disclose your percentage of effort (or person-months) on the Other Support Pages twice - once using total professional effort as the basis and once using University effort as the basis. The University effort basis should agree to the committed effort levels on the budget pages.

VA Career Development Award holders can not hold an NIH award. Holders of other VA R&D awards (Merit, Career Scientist, Center of Excellence, etc.) can hold NIH awards. Before submitting for a VA award you should contact the VA Research Service at 410-605-7130 (Mary Pope, Dr. Miriam Smyth, or Dr. David Johnson) for guidance.

All questions regarding VA research funding applications should be directed to the VA Research Service at 410-605-7130 (Mary Pope, Dr. Miriam Smyth, or Dr. David Johnson).

Since VA salary is not included in Institutional Base Salary, VA-funded research effort should not be certified on UMB's effort form. Additionally, clinical VA work should also not be included on UMB's effort form.

Individuals with joint VA and University appointments are geographic full time employees of the University.� For purposes of determining whether an individual is over the NIH cap, the individual's University Institutional Base Salary should be compared against the current cap. An example of this calculation can be found at: https://www.umaryland.edu/media/umb/af/cost/effort-help/General-Guidelines-for-faculty-with-8.pdf

The effort commitment on K-Awards is generally stated as a percentage of total professional effort. The NIH has developed a clarification of total professional effort with regards to K-awards.This clarification can be found at: http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-04-056.html

In summary as long as the recipient has a full-time UMB appointment and can dedicate the required percentage of University effort to the K-award activities, they meet the NIH requirements. In other words, VA research efforts cannot be used to meet the 75% effort commitment on the K-Award.

8/8^ths appointments are strongly discouraged. A separate guidance document has been developed to handle this very unique situation. It can be found at: http://www.cost.umaryland.edu/EffortHelp/va88ths.pdf