The salary offset mechanism is characteristic of universities in which sponsored projects are fully administered by a different organization (corporation) than the University itself. In SUNY, the University is a State agency while the Research Foundation is a private non-profit corporation operating under a contract with SUNY.
That contract provides for the Research Foundation to be able to collect salaries paid from sponsored projects on behalf of the State and to reimburse the State for salaries of State salaried employees (typically, faculty) for effort on a sponsored project. This permits the relevant State employee to continue to receive his/her salary from the State alone rather than to receive salary from two separate organizations.
Income Fund Reimbursable transactions (Salary Offsets) are the transactions used to recover the value of the salary and fringe benefits paid to state funded faculty and staff devoting effort to research grants. These funds are transferred as payments from the appropriate grant account to the departments state IFR account as reimbursement for the effort provided to the research project that was initially paid for by the state. These are time sensitive transactions treated as actual personnel appointments to the research grants and directly tied to the Research Foundation effort certification process (RF Portal Login required) mandated by the federal government.
IFR transactions should be initiated within the first month that effort is being devoted to a research project and in no case should they be processed beyond the current semester. The effort certification process is run on a semester basis three times a year and is fed by the IFR transactions. Retroactivity that extends prior to the current semester causes conflicts with effort certification and cannot be accepted.
FY08 IFR Calculation Worksheet
FY09 IFR Calculation Worksheet
FY10 IFR Calculation Worksheet
