The answer to this question depends on whether the employee is paid with grant funds or by your institution.
- Grant funds may not be used to cover the regular salary of an existing employee to work on the grant project during his/her regular working hours unless the applicant organization can demonstrate that the employee’s regular work assignment during those 15 hours will be covered by a replacement and that the replacement will be paid with non-grant funds. For example, Nayla is a full-time employee at the historical society. Fifteen hours out of her regular 35-hour work week will be spent working on the grant project. She will be paid for those 15 hours with grant funds. The historical society will hire Stella, a temporary worker, for 15 hours per week to do the normal work Nayla would have been doing had she not been working on the grant project. Stella will be paid for those 15 hours with non-grant funds.
- Grant funds may be used to cover additional work hours of existing staff provided that they do grant project-related work during those hours For example, Luca’s work schedule at the historical society is 15 hours per week. Ten hours are added to his work week to do grant project-related work. He is paid for those extra 10 hours with grant funds.
- Regular staff salaries and benefits can count towards Cost Sharing for the portion of work that relates directly to the grant project. For example, Emma is an employee of the historical society. Some of the work she does, taking calls, responding to email, scheduling meetings, and doing word processing and data entry is grant project-related. A portion of her salary and benefits paid by the historical society may count towards their cost sharing.
