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http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal
Does this mean that multi-tiered is fine as long as there is no salary
as I have had that system for years but it only covered service
contracts and allowed people to work the hrs they needed
Glen MacDonald wrote:
> 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]
>
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> ******
> The box said "Requires WindowsXP or better", so I bought a Macintosh.
> ************************************************************************
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>
> 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/
>
>
>
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