Computing & Communications recently processed a correction to the Communication Infrastructure Fee (CIF) for the October ledgers (see e-mail below on the CIF Overcharge Refund). If your department DID NOT receive a CIF refund on a grant or contract fund you do not need to read any further.
CIF REFUNDS ON GRANT/CONTRACTS:
Due to a decision made several years ago, CIF assessed against grant/contract funds are subsequently re-directed to campus Indirect Cost Recovery each month end. Unfortunately, when the CIF Overcharge Refunds were processed, the refunds were not re-directed for the October month end ledgers. The re-direct journal will be processed this week and will appear on your November ledgers.
Please direct questions to emf@ucr.edu. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
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From: Shelley Gupta
Sent: Tue, October 22, 2013 2:49 PM
To: Msoadm List
Subject: CIF OVERCHARGE REFUND
Dear MSO/ADMs:
In July 2013, it was discovered that campus departments had been mistakenly overcharged the Communications Infrastructure Fee (CIF) for the months of April, May, June, and Aug 2013 due to an omission (related to biweekly payroll) in the system algorithm that is used by UCOP to calculate the monthly fee. The algorithm has been updated and the fee is being assessed correctly beginning with September earnings.
Computing & Communications has prepared journals to refund each department the appropriate amount for each month and the refunds should hit your ledgers sometime this week.
If you care to read on, below is an explanation of exactly what happened, and an example has been attached to this email as well. Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at shelley.gupta@ucr.edu or at extension 22877.
Sincerely,
Shelley Gupta
CFAO
Computing & Communications
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BACKGROUND:
As you all know, the Communications Infrastructure Fee (CIF) is a fee that is assessed on a monthly basis per FTE.
Full-Time Monthly Paid Employee:
A campus department would be charged $58.18/month/FTE (rate effective 7/1/2013) for a full-time monthly paid employee.
Full-Time BiWeekly Paid Employee:
A biweekly employee rate will vary from month to month based upon the hours worked during the month and the number of working hours in a month. Thus, a full-time biweekly paid employee’s CIF rate for the month of July 2013 would be calculated as follows: 160 paid hours/184 max working hours X $58.18 = $50.62.
WHAT HAPPENED?
UCR converted to biweekly payroll in early 2013; however, effective April 2013, PPS creates an “extra line” per biweekly paid employee every month to assess departments for earned vacation leave. These lines show a dos code of REG, zero gross earnings, $ for vacation leave accrued, and hours on pay status ONLY. The hours associated with the “extra lines” were included in the CIF calculation each month (thus overcharging departments) since the algorithm looked at hours and not gross earnings. Please see the attached SuperDope query result for a particular fund for the months of April, May, June 2013; the yellow highlighted rows are the “extra lines.”
Please note that no “extra lines” were created for the month of July 2013. More than likely, the June 22, 2013 biweekly vacation accrual entries did not appear in July 2013 because of fiscal year end.
Refunds for the overcharges should hit your ledgers this week and UCOP has corrected the algorithm to exclude these hours from the CIF calculation beginning with September earnings.
Once again, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.