Project Administration
Covering Costs for Sponsored Project Employees on Extended Paid Leave
Background
OSU staff accrue vacation and sick leave each pay period. If an employee needs to use the leave balance for an extended leave (e.g., maternity leave, lengthy illness, recovery from an accident, care of a relative), the leave is charged to the source from which he or she is being paid at the time the leave is taken. This could be a department fund or an externally sponsored project. Externally funded grants and contracts do not always have sufficient funds to cover the costs of a replacement for a regular employee who is on extended paid leave.
The Extended Leave Account
The Research Foundation has created an account, the extended leave account, to relieve projects of part of the burden of the costs of regular employees on extended personal or family medical leave.
Criteria for Using the Extended Leave Account
- The extended leave program will cover salary and benefit costs for the duration of the employee's leave or for the amount of time for which paid leave is available to the employee, whichever is shorter.
- Costs will be covered as follows:
- weeks 1 and 2 paid by the project account
- weeks 3 and 4 shared between the project account and the extended leave account
- week 5 and beyond paid by the extended leave account
- Faculty and student appointments are excluded from consideration.
Process for Access to Extended Leave Account
- The principal investigator sends a request for access to the extended leave account to the director of sponsored programs at the Research Foundation. The request must include the name of the employee taking leave, the anticipated duration of the leave, and the project number(s) from which the employee is paid. By sending the request, the investigator is certifying that the leave has been authorized by the employee's physician or approved as family medical leave by University Human Resources.
- The Research Foundation's executive director, director of sponsored programs, and manager of human resources will review requests for compliance with the criteria listed above.
- If the request is approved, expenses incurred for the employee on extended leave, as specified in B. above, will be transferred from the project account(s) to the Research Foundation extended leave account.
- If the request is denied, the principal investigator may appeal to the senior associate vice president for research, whose decision is final.
