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Dear all
This topic is the main discussion item of the round table at the M&M 
meeting in Florida in August. It is part of the FOM FIG (focused 
interest group for facitliy and operation managers). This session is 
slated for Thursday August 6 in the morning.
Hope to see you there
Elaine

>Search the CONFOCAL archive at
>http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal
>
>Our facility is wanting to move from a pay-per-use for each 
>instrument billing system to a yearly fee system in which users pay 
>a single fee for unlimited use of instruments. The problem is that I 
>can't get accountants here at the University of Minnesota to bend 
>their minds around the "yearly fee" system. The accountants have 
>been trained according to ISO (Internal Service Organization) 
>accounting protocols that rely upon usage numbers to obtain the 
>hourly fee. Any deviation from that path seems to fan the flames of 
>fear and terror of granting authorities doing audits.
>
>I am aware of two core facilities in the USA that charge according 
>to the "yearly fee" system. The accountants here might be swayed if 
>only they could know that other universities (more than 2) also bill 
>according to a yearly fee system, and, even better, if they knew how 
>this kind of fee is justified.
>
>I don't know if I'm stepping on forbidden ground by bringing up what 
>might be a touchy topic, but I'd sure appreciate knowing either 
>publicly or privately about core facilities that do the "yearly fee" 
>system with comments about how justification is done for the 
>charges. I'd sure appreciate it!
>
>Jerry Sedgewick
>Director, Biomedical Image Processing Lab (BIPL)
>University of Minnesota
>312 Church Street S.E.
>Minneapolis, MN  55455
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-- 
Dr. Elaine Humphrey
Microscopy Specialist
MSA FOM FIG Leader (2006-8)
President, Microscopy Society of Canada (2003-2005)
University of British Columbia
e-mail: [log in to unmask]