Negotiated Salary Program | Frequently Asked Questions

Definitions

NSP – Negotiated Salary Trial Program

SBS – Scale-based Salary [an individual’s regular scale salary rate, plus any off-scale]. This does NOT include administrative stipends.

NSC – Negotiated Salary Component [the salary component beyond the SBS that must be negotiated annually]

TUCS – Total UC Salary [this is the salary rate, consisting of the participant’s SBS plus the NSC]

Guidelines for Participants

Question: How much is the contingency fund %?

Answer: Check with your division; the campus minimum is 10% but deans are allowed to increase it for their division.

Question: If I participate in the NSP, will I be able to obtain summer salary?

Answer: Summer salary and the NSP are independent programs, and the NSP does not affect a faculty member’s decision to obtain summer salary. Funding availability and eligibility are key factors in program participation. To be eligible for the NSP, candidates who hold academic-year Senate appointments must take the maximum amount of summer salary (summer ninths) available to them. If the faculty member elects to take NSP and summer salary, the summer salary rate will be based on the TUCS.

Example:

Question: How is the NSP different from the concept of summer salary? Does this mean that we could increase our 9 month salary by up to 30% from (non-state) extramural funds?

Answer: Summer salary and the NSP are independent programs. The NSP rate is effective during the year for which a faculty member receives approval (July 1 through June 30) – the 9/12 salary is increased by the negotiated salary component (up to 30% of the base salary).

Question: Are faculty in the Teaching Professor series eligible to participate in the NSP?

Answer: Yes. See APM 672-14 Eligibility.

Question: Are there any possible exceptions for late applications (e.g., because of receiving a grant after the deadline)?

Answer: No, there are no exceptions to the application deadline.

Guidelines for Departments and Division

Contingency Fund

Question: What cost account code should be used for the transfer of the contingency fund contributions? This will help us determine if there are any unrestricted extramural funds to which this type of expense would be considered an allocable cost. These funds don’t really represent salary. The contingency fund contribution seems to be more of a fee to participate in the NSP. Because these contributions are just a percentage of a negotiated component dollar amount they can’t be represented as effort towards research (i.e., salary) on an extramural fund. If it will not be charged via an account code, how does the campus plan to allocate contingency funds from the PI FOAPAL to the divisional FOAPAL?

Answer: There are two options; if neither are allowable by the fund source, then it can’t be used for NSP. 1) transfer the funds directly to the contingency fund; 2) charge a percent of the base salary to the unrestricted fund, then use the freed-up 19900 funds to transfer into the contingency fund. Accounting will have to answer questions about process or account codes.

Proposal Evaluation and Review

Training compliance

Question: How does a department chair obtain information with regard to training compliance and/or what are the particular trainings that a professor must obtain?

Answer: See the list of Required Trainings for Academic appointees to be considered in good standing.

Funding

Question: Can we include an estimated 3% increase as of July 1st when calculating the faculty salary rates? We don’t usually know what the actual yearly faculty salary increase will be (~3% or more) prior to July 1st nor do we usually know all of the review and merit increase outcomes before 7/1 that may result in increased salary rates for some faculty.

Answer: For the application, use the current rate without projecting for the range adjustment or any merit increase. If either the range adjustment or the merit are effective on July 1, the new salary rate may be used to increase the TUCS except as stated in the Procedures and depending on funding availability:

The total UC salary—base salary plus negotiated component—may not be changed after July 1 for any reason, including but not limited to: mid-year salary scale adjustments (e.g. general range/COLA effective October 1 or any date other than July 1); merit increases and promotions approved after July 1, even with a retroactive effective date; or the receipt of additional contract and grant funds. If a faculty member’s scale-based salary (covered compensation) is increased after the NSP application is approved, the negotiated salary component will be adjusted downward so that the total UC salary remains unchanged for the fiscal year.

Question: The guidelines say that “funding must be awarded and in hand prior to June 30 of the current fiscal year to be considered for that year’s application”. Why is this so important, especially because it may disqualify R01 recipients who receive annual increments every October 1 which must be expended in that fund year?

Answer: Funding must be real and available to be considered for the NSP; this restriction protects the program. Allowing future, potential funding that doesn’t pan out could jeopardize the program, requiring payouts from the reserve fund.

Question: The Procedures state that the fund source must cover the entire year. Grant award dates do not line up with the academic year. It’s likely that a faculty member may have the grant funds to participate but will be pulling from 2 or more fund sources to guarantee the full year of funding. Is that an issue?

Answer: No, it’s not a problem to use multiple fund sources for NSP, as long as they are all “in hand” at the time of the application.

Question: What does “funding must be awarded and in-hand—deposited to a UCSC account—prior to June 30th” mean? If an award is released by OSP does that qualify? We ask because the majority of our contract and grant funds are issued on a reimbursement basis (i.e., UCSC Extramural Funds Accounting invoices the award sponsor on a monthly or quarterly basis for costs that have already occurred on the award). The campus essentially fronts the funds to cover the costs and then is reimbursed by the sponsors.

Answer: That’s not a situation we envisioned. The principle is that there must be extremely minimal risk of the funds not being available. Please check with your division.

DivData

Question: How should divisions enter the NSP rate in DivData?

Answer: DivData salary should reflect the non-NSP rate (the Scale-Based Salary), since that is what should be used for special salary practice calculations (and range adjustment). Divisions should add a comment “25-26 NSP participant; TUCS $nnn,nnn” to the 7/1 salary row.

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