Purpose

To explain the Personnel Activity Reporting (PAR) system. 

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Background Information

The Personnel Activity Reporting (PAR) system is the method used by Oregon State University to reasonably substantiate the activities (effort) of employees who are compensated in any part by restricted funds or cost share funds as required by OMB Circular A-21.  The PAR system is only an effort tracking system that recognizes where an employee’s effort is applied.

This system DOES NOT alter the indexes from which salaries and wages are paid.  The information accumulated on the PAR system is subject to audit verification and, if found to be inaccurate by federal auditors, disallowance of both direct and indirect costs can be assessed.

Requirements of OMB Circular A-21, Section J.8:

1. Payroll system will reasonably reflect the activity for the employee.
2. Method must recognize the principle of after-the-fact confirmation.
3. Practices vary as to activity constituting a full workload.  Therefore, the payroll system may reflect categories expressed as percent of total distribution.
4. Payroll charges may be made initially to sponsored agreements on basis of estimates made before services are performed. When such estimates are used, significant changes in the work activity must be identified and entered into the payroll distribution system. Short-term fluctuations need not be considered as long as the distribution is reasonable over the longer term, such as an academic period (school term).
5. Confirmation of effort (activity reports) will be reported on a percentage basis and reasonably reflect the activities for which employees are compensated by the institution.
6. Effort confirmation will be signed by the employee, principal investigator, or responsible official using means of verification that the work was performed; i.e., person with first-hand knowledge.
7. Reports will be prepared each academic term for all academic, professional faculty, or classified employees who are paid either totally or in any part by restricted funds or by cost sharing funds. For other employees (students and temporary), no effort reports are generated.
8. Time cards or other forms of after-the-fact payroll documents should be signed by the principal investigator as original documentation for payroll charges.  Copies of these forms should be kept at the department and will then serve as documentation for effort reporting purposes.

System Approval:

1. The PAR system is approved by our cognizant audit agency DHHS.
2. Method of meeting effort reporting requirement is in our CASB Disclosure Statement DS-2.

Uses for Effort Reports (current PAR Forms):

1. The OMB A-21 requirements are fulfilled.
2. State, federal compliance auditors, and other agency auditors review these documents.  There could be possible dollar disallowance's if the PAR forms are not completed and signed.
3. The forms should be used by departments to properly classify the use of individual offices (research or instruction) in the university’s space inventory. The space inventory is used for many purposes, including the F&A Rate Proposal.
4. When effort is expended on a sponsored agreement and not charged to the sponsor, PAR forms can be used to document the effort as university cost share.

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Policy

At the end of each quarter, PAR forms are produced from the HRIS payroll system.  Parameters are selected to identify the calendar year and quarter to be reported.  Selection is limited to only those individuals who have been paid either in full or in part during the quarter from restricted grant funds or cost sharing funds.  The PAR form has been designed to list all the indexes from which the individual is paid, the amount paid from each index, and the percentage of total pay for the quarter that amount represents.

PAR forms will be sorted by home organization.  The Office of Post Award Administration will send the forms to the designated PAR coordinator for each department.

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Procedure