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Here in Australia granting agencies absolutely will not
pay annual 'subscriptions' to core facilities - they
insist on paying only for the hours used.  Nevertheless
most if not all of our major users are on an annual
subscription basis - which may seem strange.

The point is we offer different annual rates with
greater discounts per hour according to the amount
of use (committed).  Since all grant projects will
have budgeted a number of hours of microscope time
it is easy for them to pick the appropriate
subscription level.  It all appears in the accounts
as payment for hours of microscope time and the
granting bodies are happy because they can see that
the user has obtained the most economical rate.

                                         Guy


> 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]
>
>


-- 
Associate Professor Guy Cox
Electron Microscope Unit,
University of Sydney,
NSW 2006, Australia

Phone:+61 2 9351 3176    Fax:+61 2 9351 7682
http://www.guycox.net