ARRA Reporting Guidelines
Overview | Instructions | FAQs
Purpose
To ensure that the University of South Florida (USF) meets the reporting requirements as outlined in Section 1512 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA)
Background and History
Section 1512 of the ARRA requires reports on the use of ARRA funding by recipients no later than the 10th calendar day after the end of the each quarter (beginning the
quarter ending September 30, 2009) and for the Federal agency providing those funds to make the reports publicly available no later than the 30th day after the end of that
quarter. Aimed at providing transparency into the use of these funds, the recipient reports are required to include the following detailed information:
- Total amount of funds received; and of that, the amount spent on projects and activities;
- A list of those projects and activities funded by name to include:
- Description
- Completion status
- Estimates on jobs created or retained;
- Details on subcontracts (vendor) or subawards (sub-recipient):
- or any first-tier subcontract or subaward that is over $25,000, detailed information must be provided for the individual contract or award.
- For subcontracts or subawards less than $25,000, information shall be reported on an aggregate basis.
USF's Policy
The University will comply with all ARRA reporting requirements for the awards it receives. If the University is the prime recipient of ARRA funds, Division of Sponsored Research (DSR) will report directly to the
Federal Government as the prime. Sub-recipients will be responsible for reporting all ARRA funds received in accordance with the language contained in their contract. If the University is a sub-recipient of ARRA funds, DSR
will report in accordance with the prime recipient’s requirements.
Roles and Responsibilities
- DSR has the overall responsibility to ensure compliance with the ARRA requirements on any extramurally funded ARRA grant or award.
- Principal Investigators (PI) are responsible for providing certain ARRA Reporting elements to DSR in accordance with established deadlines. PI is also responsible
for complying with specific ARRA Terms and Conditions of the award.
- PI will be responsible for maintaining documentation to support data elements provided.
Instructions for Principal Investigators
- Approximately two weeks prior to the end of each quater, DSR will email a spreadsheet to the PI requesting updated information for that quarter.
- The PI will be required to complete the spreadsheet and return it to DSR by the 5th calendar day of the month, following the end of the quarter (October 1, January 1, April 1, and July 1).
Insturctions for Subrecipients
Instructions for Vendors
Frequent Asked Questions
Who will submit USF's Quarterly Reports?
DSR has registered USF in the FederalReporting.gov as the Recipient and DSR will be responsible for submitting the completed quarterly reports to the
government through the FederalReporting.gov web site, beginning October 1, 2009.
What Reporting Format is being used at USF?
- FederalReporting.gov allows three basic methods for submitting reports - online data entry in the Web browser, Excel spreadsheet, and
custom software system extract in XML.
- USF will use the Excel spreadsheet method as provided by FederalReporting.gov
Who completes the Excel Spreadsheet?
- DSR will pre-fill the Federal Reporting Excel template with known contract and grant institutional information.
- DSR will then deliver to each PI of an ARRA funded award an instructional email, with three attachments as follows;
Warning: Do not modify the structure of the federal reporting Excel template or the submission to FederalReporting.gov will fail.
Who calculates Jobs Created/Retained?
- One of the fields that will need to be completed by the PI will be the "Jobs field" in the reporting template.
- Please follow the methodology outlined in section 5.3 and 5.4, as applicable, of OMB's Guidance Memo dated June 22, 2009. The relevant sections will be attached to DSR's instructional email.
What period of time do I need to report?
The first reporting period begins from the awards start date and should include data through September 30, 2009. For subsequent reporting periods, you will be reporting the activity for that given quarter. All awards issued after September 30, 2009 will be reported during the next reporting period.
Do I have to report if I have not yet spent any funds?
If you have been given an award, you must report the award value. If you have not received or spent any of the funds, you must report "$0" for funds expended.
What are the Reporting Deadlines?
- We are requesting that the PI returns his/her completed Excel template to DSR by the 5th calendar day of the month in which the report is due.
- For example; October 5th or earlier is the internal deadline for the PI to return the completed Excel file to DSR in order to provide DSR sufficient time to compile the information before submission on October 10.
Other Highlights
- The PI will not need to collect the subrecipient information as USF has selected the option provided by FederalReporting.gov that allows Subrecipient's to
report directly to FederalReporting.gov under the USF contract or award.
- PI will need to collect the required reporting information for vendor purchases.
- DSR will complete the field "Amount of Payment Received" using information provided by Research Financial Management (RFM)..
- DSR will complete the field "Total ARRA Grant Expenditure" using information provided by RFM.
- DSR will complete the field "Activity Code". For all NSF use the NPC code K. For NIH we can use NPC code of K or fine grain it, if necessary.
- DSR will complete the field "Program Source (TAS)" using the find feature in the spreadsheet.
- DSR will complete the field "Primary Place of Performance" and will always use : University of South Florida System address
- USF does not need to report the compensation of the 5 highest paid officers.
