Bidding of consultant and other professional costs on subawards are also
included in Memo 04-03, dated 11/25/03, issued by the Controller's
Office. The memo states that effective immediately, the "no-bid
required" limit has been raised from $2,000 to $5,000. Please keep
in
mind these limits are per consultant or vendor, regardless of the number
of awards or accounts they are being paid from:
* *If consulting services will total $25,000 or more*: These
must
be bid or approved as sole source by the State
Division of
Purchasing. Please contact Roger Johnson in
Purchasing and/or Rex
Goff in PreAward Services for assistance.
* *If consulting services will total $5,000 to $24,999.99*:
These
must be bid or approved as sole source by the KSU
Purchasing
Office and reported to the State annually.
Please contact Roger
Johnson in Purchasing and/or Rex Goff in PreAward
Services for
assistance.
* *If consulting services will total under $5,000*: Bids and/or
sole source approvals are not necessary.
Sole source justifications must be documented and approved as applicable
on the KSU Prior Authorization form (available on the Controller's
E-forms web site) PRIOR to obtaining such services. This form must be
prepared for each consultant agreement and submitted to the KSU
Purchasing section of the Controller's Office. If the consultant(s) are
identified by name in the sponsor-approved budget and the total is under
the $25,000 threshold, a copy of the budget can be substituted for the
KSU Prior Authorization Form.
Please remember to consider all payments that will be made to the
consultant, including travel reimbursements and multiple payments to the
same consultant when considering the dollar thresholds. *Payments shall
not be split to avoid the $5,000 limit*. Splitting payments is in
violation of state law and University purchasing policies. Consultant
agreements are highly recommended whenever possible.
* If consultant costs are in the award budget for $5,000 or more,
please work with Rex Goff in PreAward Services to have
a
consultant agreement prepared.
* If consultant costs are not in the award budget, but are
subsequently anticipated at any point during the
project, please
work with Rex Goff in PreAward Services to have a
consultant
agreement prepared for those totaling $5,000 or more.
* If consultant costs exceeding $5,000 are to be charged to the
project, and no agreement has been prepared, the
appropriate
action must be taken to bid or get sole source
approval for *each
payment prior to these costs being incurred*.
This is most likely
going to occur when a PI wants to pay to bring a
collaborator,
fellow researcher, seminar speaker, etc. to campus on
a sponsored
project. Bringing an individual in more than
once or for more
than a few days can push the total cost to over
$5,000, so please
take care to take the appropriate steps prior to scheduling
these
visits.
PPM Chapter 7050.070 also covers subawards and consultant agreements.
Finally, as with any cost charged directly to a sponsored project, the
cost must meet all allowability criteria, no matter what the dollar
amount is. Allowable direct costs are those that are necessary for
completion of that specific project, are incurred during the project
period and are not expressly disallowed by the sponsor.