Search the CONFOCAL archive at
http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal
Not quite on the topic but it seems to me astounding that the US
Gov't can lose $9 billion in cash money under Bremmer in Iraq with
not a squeak of protest, but can also pay people who know nothing
about research (or what drives the folk who do it) to obstruct it in
this trivial and boisterous manner.
Surely equipment that is not being used is "costing" someone. Maybe,
if we all became subsidiaries of Halliburton, these matters would be
seen as less important. Anyone got a PC program that would do that?
On second thought, maybe it would be better just to keep two sets of
books: Office hours and Not office hours.
Jim Pawley
(Explanatory note: Maybe I'm grumpy because I just heard that an
eager potential student at this year's UBC course will not be able to
attend because USDA requires a 90 day advanced warning for "foreign"
travel.)
>Search the CONFOCAL archive at
>http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal
>
>this brings up the question of justification for reduced rates
>during non-peak hours when fees do not support salaries. We
>proposed a reduced rate during evenings and weekends to encourage
>users to avoid the prime time hours, as well as to benefit
>investigators on a tight budget. Our accountants said that was not
>legal since the user fee is paying for service contracts and
>supplies but not for staff assistance. Which meant that users were
>getting the same service in the evenings and weekends as they were
>during the M-F daytime hours.
>Staff salaries are not covered by user fees. We would have to
>re-budget by putting part of salaries on the user fees and moving
>service contracts to the facility support grant.
>
>Has anyone successfully implemented a 2-tier fee that did not cover
>staff support?
>
>Regards,
>Glen
>
>Glen MacDonald
>Core for Communication Research
>Virginia Merrill Bloedel Hearing Research Center
>Box 357923
>University of Washington
>Seattle, WA 98195-7923 USA
>(206) 616-4156
>[log in to unmask]
>
>******************************************************************************
>The box said "Requires WindowsXP or better", so I bought a Macintosh.
>******************************************************************************
>
>
>On May 30, 2007, at 11:47 AM, Thomas E. Phillips wrote:
>
>>Search the CONFOCAL archive at
>>http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal Beyond the
>>accounting issues, I have always seen a major pitfall with this
>>idea is how you allocate time on the instrument. One major lab with
>>multiple postdocs and grad students might monopolize the scope for
>>days or weeks at a time. I have some clients who do 8-10 hr time
>>course studies. They might design a lot more of those experiments
>>if it didn't cost them more then they are already paying now. My
>>own research used our core confocal to collect 3 color stacks that
>>took up to 30 min of acquisition time even when we used
>>bidirectional scanning with minimal averaging. If I hadn't of been
>>paying for the time, I would have done single directional scanning
>>with 4x averaging and taken over 60 min per stack and probably
>>collected a lot more stacks. We had a fluorescence stereoscope in
>>our core that was free to use. This resulted in some labs booking
>>the entire morning and showing up mid morning for 30 min of use -
>>thus preventing others from getting on the scope (EM time at
>>Harvard had this same problem when I postdoc'ed there). Our core
>>does off a reduced rate for after hours/weekend use if the client
>>is booking more than 4 hrs in a row. This helps move the
>>experiments needing long blocks of time to low usage time. I have
>>thought about coming up with an after hour bulk rate (e.g., 100 hrs
>>at $20/hr).
>>
>>At 01:35 PM 05/30/07, you wrote:
>>>Search the CONFOCAL archive at
>>>http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal --
>>>My understanding is that for NIH funded research and/or NIH core
>>>funded facilities, the federal government wants to see a (strict)
>>>correspondence between usage and billing. We need to keep records
>>>of every service provided (every minute of microscope time used)
>>>to match to every dollar that we bill our users. No flat yearly
>>>fee allowed, and no pre-pay allowed either... I do not know how
>>>strictly this is enforced, but we do get audits of the billing
>>>records.
>>>
>>>--
>>>Julio Vazquez
>>>Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
>>>1100 Fairview Ave. N., mailstop DE-512
>>>Seattle, WA 98109-1024
>>>
>>>[log in to unmask]
>>>http://www.fhcrc.org/science/shared_resources/imaging/
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>On May 30, 2007, at 10:19 AM, Jerry Sedgewick wrote:
>>>
>>>>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
>>>>[log in to unmask]
>>Thomas E. Phillips, PhD
>>Professor of Biological Sciences
>>Director, Molecular Cytology Core
>>2 Tucker Hall
>>University of Missouri
>>Columbia, MO 65211-7400
>>
>>573-882-4712 (office)
>>573-882-0123 (fax)
>>[log in to unmask]
>>http://www.biology.missouri.edu/faculty/phillips.html
>>http://www.biotech.missouri.edu/mcc/
--
****************************************
Prof. James B. Pawley, Ph. 608-263-3147
Room 223, Zoology Research Building, FAX 608-262-9083
250 N. Mills St., Madison, WI, 53706 [log in to unmask]
"A scientist is not one who can answer questions but one who can
question answers." Theodore Schick Jr., Skeptical Enquirer, 21-2:39
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