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Changes to Regular Salary / Funding / End Dates

Please use the Personnel Action Form (PAF) - Benefited Employees Only (Docusign PAF) to request these actions:

  • Salary, title, or grade changes for Grants and Contracts employees and Research Faculty: First contact Kimberley Casey, Executive Director of Compensation and Benefits, to describe your request and secure appropriate approvals. Upon approval, submit the Docusign PAF.
  • Changes to Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) and/or daily work schedule. FTE of 1.0  is 37 hours per week for professional unit employees. Reductions in FTE may not be retroactive. The Docusign must be completely approved before the employee reduces their work hours.
  • Changes to regular salary funding source or their allocations.
  • Extensions of employment appointments.
  • Request Course Buyouts not paid by Research Investment Funds (RIF). See Course Buyouts for instructions, and for the process for Course Buyouts paid with RIF.

To inquire about salary, title, or grade changes for Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Professionals or Non-Unit Professional Staff, please see the Professional Unit Employee Compensation Review process.

Determining Required Approvers based on Funding

The type of funding determines which approvers are needed for personnel actions. In all cases, approval is required by the employee's manager. To determine other approvers:

  • Chartfield Lookup: Enter the speedtype or other value, and if the first character of the Project is an S, it is an external grant (S) / sponsored funding; these require approval by the Principal Investigator (PI)
  • Grant Fund Codes: lists Fund codes considered external grant/sponsored funding; these require approval by the Principal Investigator (PI)
  • University (department / state) Fund codes are 52110 or begin with 51. These require approval by the Department Chair
  • All other Fund codes require approval by the fund manager. To identify the fund manager, see the activity page in SUMMIT Job Aids and Training
  • Research Investment Funds are Fund code 52129. These require approval by the fund manager and:
    • For Faculty, they require approval by the Controller
    • For Staff, they require approval by the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation (VCRI)

The Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) provides assistance to faculty and research staff in all aspects of obtaining and managing external research funding. OSP assists with administration of grants and contracts from setup through award closeout.

Course Buyouts

A personnel action form (PAF) must be submitted which will charge the non-university fund $15,000, thereby leaving $15,000 in the university salary account, which will be used to pay the replacement instructor and other expenses. The form to use is based on the funding source, (A) Research Investment Funds or (B) Grant Funds:

(A) Instructions for course buyouts with Research Investment Funds (RIF)

See Principal Investigator (PI) Research Investment Funds (RIF)  Course Buyout.

(B) Instructions for course buyouts with Grant Funds

Please use the Personnel Action Form - Benefited Employees Only (Docusign). Fill out the signer fields as follows:

Employee: The faculty member requesting the course buyout

Approvers/PIs - this section is for approvers: (The faculty member, although a PI, does not need to sign again in this section).

  1. The faculty member's manager (for example: the Chair, or if the faculty member is the Chair, then the Dean).
  2. If applicable, a co-PI.
  3. If more than one course buyout per academic year is being requested: include the Dean for the second and subsequent course buyouts during that year.
  4. If more than two course buyouts per academic year are being requested: include the Provost for the third and subsequent course buyout requests during that year.

Instructions on filling out the fields within the Docusign form:

  • Action/Action Reason (box 3): Check Course Buyout.
  • Annual Salary (based on full-time employment (FTE)) (box 9): Your regular 9-month academic year salary, which is the base salary plus any pensionable stipends.
  • Appointment End Date (box 5): May be left blank.
  • Effective Date (box 4) and Payroll Allocation Beginning Date (for every Human Resources (HR) Combo Code in box 13): Any Sunday in January (for Spring) or the first Sunday in September (for Fall).

The calculations below will arrive at the $15,000 buyout amount regardless of the exact dates chosen as long as they span exactly 13 weeks. This is because it is based on one quarter of the salary, which is the salary paid in 13 weeks, one quarter of the calendar year.

  • Payroll Allocation End Date (for every combo code in box 13): The Saturday spanning 13 weeks after the Sunday Effective Date.
  • Allocation percentage for the HR Combo Code of your external grant:  $15,000 divided by (one quarter of the Annual Salary).
  • Allocation percentage for the HR Combo Code of your standard university salary: 100% minus the Allocation percentage for the HR Combo Code of your external grant.

Compensation and Additional Compensation

For more information, see: