Minutes of the NIH Intramural Administrative Officers' Meeting

March 2, 2000

NIH Principal Administrative Officers:

Present: Alternates:

Robert Dennis, NIMH, Chair Susan Harrelson, NIAID

Don Bortner, NIA Priscilla Logan, NIAAA

Marsha Hennings, NIAMS Mary Slagle, NEI

Carol Smith, NINDS Anita Miles, CIT

Linda Adams, NHGRI John Savannah, ORS

Evelyn Burrell, NICHD

Francie Kitzmiller, NIDDK

Betty Fitzpatrick, NCI

Ruth Ann Talley, NCI

Elaine Ayres, CC

Janis Mullaney, OD/OIR Liaison

Mr. Robert Dennis chaired the meeting.

Meeting of Principal Administrative Officers:

1. Office of Intramural Research (OIR) Issues - Ms. Janis Mullaney briefed the group on the following topics:

a. Database for Tenure Track Investigators - Ms. Mullaney distributed lists to all the ICs of what is currently in the database for their ICs and asked the AOs to get back to her with any changes.

b. Shipping of Hazardous Materials - Ms. Mullaney distributed a package of information she received from Valery Gordon, NIH Deputy Biosafety Officer. She said that Dr. Gottesman is trying to meet with Dr. Debbie Wilson, Chief, Occupational Safety and Health Branch. He wants to understand if the training requirements have changed from what the SDs were told this summer.

c. Visiting IC staffs - Ms. Mullaney is arranging for visits to all the principal administrative officers in the ICs, then with the AO staffs, if requested.

2. Best Practices - Ms. Talley led a discussion using samples from her organization on the following topics:

a. Fellowship Advancement Awards - Ms. Talley distributed a policy memo on how her organization goes through the competitive process of awarding merit increases to their postdoctoral fellows.

b. Intramural AO Website - Ms. Talley expressed the need to discuss what should be on this website. She suggested a link to the NCI administrative website where they have their Red Book, Best Practices and Administrative Procedures. Similarly, this web site should link to all IC administrative pages to assist in facilitating the sharing of best practices. We further discussed the possibility of the Intramural AO website could be a link to the DDIR website and could link directly to ICs' websites.

ACTION ITEM: Each of the Principal AOs should bring to the next meeting samples of similar documents if their IC uses them.

c. Budget Process - There was much discussion on how the different ICs tracked their personnel actions, budgets and how funding was allocated per lab. Some allocate a formula of an amount per PI and some use the latest BSC review recommendations to make increases or decreases to current budgets. Some ICs review every PI's budget every year.

ACTION ITEM: Each of the Principal AOs should bring to the next meeting the formula and/or process their IC uses to determine how much funding each lab is allocated. In addition, they should bring a sample of the format they use to display the budget data and be prepared to discuss whether they use VSOF, Datawarehouse, or another method to display budget figures. An outgrowth of this process could be to create a uniform method and tools to be used for tracking budgets. Therefore, a sub-group was formed to standardize all the inputs from the ICs. On the sub-group are Mr. Dennis, Ms. Talley, Ms. Fitzpatrick, and Ms. Smith.

d. Summary Document for Calculating T42 salaries - Ms. Talley distributed a sample of the form her organization uses to calculate salaries for Title 42 positions. Ms. Talley recommended that at the next meeting, the AOs can discuss what their policies are for setting salaries when someone moves from one type of appointment to a Title 42 appointment. Ms. Mullaney told the group that there is a de-tenure process for poor performance outlined in the source book.

3. Best Practices - The Office of Intramural Research receives many questions on visa issues. Therefore, Ms. Mullaney recommended creating a document with Qs & As to provide additional guidance of these visa issues. This document would be included in the Intramural Research Sourcebook.

4. New Business System - Ms. Adams said that phase one is complete and they are ready to start phase 2. Institutes will be participating in phase 2, which will contain a core of individuals to follow through on the design/implementation phase. How this will be determined has not been finalized. They also want to make sure that the scientific staff serves on these committees. This phase is looking at business practices and business rules and it will be important to have strong intramural support. Colleen Barros, the person in charge of this project, will go to the March 15th meeting to brief the SDs on the status of the New Business System.

5. VRP animals - Ms. Fitzpatrick lead a discussion on this topic. She said that her concern is with the care the animals are receiving in 14C. Barton Weick is meeting with the investigators who have animals in that facility and will be discussing the problems. She has no issue with the animal care in Building 49 at this time. However, the cost has gone up considerably this year. Ms. Ayres said that the Clinical Center has found that drastic increase in animal care, feeding and veterinary charges animals has seriously impacted science initiatives. Rather than continue to pay these charges, the Clinical Center has renegotiated their charges and locked them in for the year using MOU's. She thinks that ORS is making up a deficit from last year and that's why they have increased the charges.

6. Relocation Expenses - Ms. Burrell asked for clarification on whether the government was required to pay for relocation costs of employees. There was some general discussion on the topic and the consensus was that, for the time being, the IC's Personnel Offices should be contacted for each vacancy announcement.

7. Long term use of vehicles - Mr. Dennis distributed a handout on this topic. ORS has changed the policy so that an IC who purchases a vehicle must fully pay for it at the time of purchase, instead of the current pro-rated monthly payments. At the time the vehicle is made available, the IC is obligated to pay for the full price of the vehicle, whether the vehicle is used for 1 day or its full scheduled life. This will be retroactive to vehicles that have already been purchased by ICs. Current holders of vehicles will be billed (from the fiscal year funding in which the purchase took place) for the remaining purchase-price balances, even if the vehicles are returned. The "life" of the vehicle is generally considered to be 7 years; therefore, it is expected that anything purchased in FY94 or earlier will not be billed to the ICs. The original customer pays the full vehicle price, regardless of term of use, and will never get a rebate for unused time. There will be no "credit" to the purchaser for returning/surplusing a vehicle. If the vehicle is transferred to a new customer, no "purchase" payment is required - only the regular monthly NIH fee (currently $150, as determined by OFM). Therefore, the vehicle is paid off and free to the new customer. There will continue to be a $150/month fee that does not include fuel or maintenance expenses. We understand that only NIEHS has authority to make independent arrangements for acquiring vehicles. The earliest a vehicle can now be made available is Jan/Feb 2001. All vehicles are expected to use alternative fuel (GSA requirement, if available.

Given that circumstances and customers' needs can change quickly, this policy poses considerable risk for the initial customer. Once purchased, there is no incentive to return a vehicle before its scheduled life, in contrast to requirements to justify vehicle use on the basis of mileage, etc. Ms. Mullaney said that she would bring this issue to OD's attention.

DISTRIBUTION:

Administrative Officers (For distribution to staff members)

Scientific Directors

Executive Officers