Extension of Administrative Relief for Recipients and Applicants of Federal Financial Assistance Directly Impacted by COVID-19

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) initially provided flexibilities allowing Federal agencies to grant administrative, financial and audit requirement flexibilities to recipients of Federal awards. Most of those flexibilities expired on June 16, 2020 (for M-20-17 and M-20-20) and July 26, 2020 (for M-20-11). The recent extension in M-20-26 provides continued flexibility of the allowability of salary and other project activities through September 30, 2020. As a result, charges for salaries and benefits on active federally-funded sponsored projects continue to be allowable when applied in accordance with the university’s HR Policy 70 Attendance/Hours of Work, as revised on April 21, 2020. Under these flexibilities, salary costs paid through the Federal CARES Act programs are not allowable expenses to current Federal awards. To date, the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation have implemented the extended administrative flexibility. It is anticipated that other federal agencies will also follow OMB’s directive. Both NIH and NSF have revised or issued new FAQs related to the agency’s implementation of the new OMB guidance. Your OSPA Research Administrator (RA) is available to provide guidance about the extended flexibility and your specific sponsored project award.