ARCHIVED NEWS FOR JANUARY 2006

posted 01/28/06
Per Diem Rates Raised In Several Metro Areas
The General Services Administration has updated the per diem rates for several metropolitan regions, including Washington, D.C., area.

The rate changes will apply to all travel starting Feb. 1, according to a Federal Travel Regulation per diem bulletin released last week and published in the Federal Register. GSA adjusted the rates after determining that lodging and meals and incidental expenses allowances for the localities failed to adequately reflect costs. For the full story:http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=33216&dcn=e_tma

Notre Dame per diem rates are discussed on page 9-10 of Notre Dame's travel policy. Notre Dame offers the meal and incidental per diem only, NOT the lodging per diem. Notre Dame uses the rates set by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA). The rates vary depending on location and if traveling to a foreign location, can vary monthly. The link to GSA website is http://www.gsa.gov/Portal/gsa/ep/home.do?tabid=0 just follow the per diem links. This link should always be used to check the per diem rates, as it reflects the most current rates.

NOTE:The meal per diem can only be taken if meals were NOT provided. This is especially important on conference travel since some conferences include some or all meals. The conference agenda should be attached anyway, but in this case it is used to support that meals were NOT provided.

posted 01/28/06
2006 Notre Dame Employee Health Insurance Rates Now Available
The Office of Research website has been updated to reflect the 2006 Notre Dame Employee Health Insurance Rates. Please review when estimating costs of benefits for proposals. http://www.nd.edu/~research/ProposalPrep/budget.html

posted 01/20/06
NSF FastLane News: Using Emails Rather Than SSNs

Effective January 21, users will now have the option to add Co-PIs to a FastLane proposal via e-mail address or SSN/pseudo-SSN.

To support this enhancement, FastLane applications that allow Principal Investigators to enter or change their e-mail address will require that e-mail addresses be unique. Principal Investigators can review, add, or change their FastLane e-mail addresses in the Edit Principal Investigator (PI) Information screen in FastLane Proposal Preparation module.

posted 01/20/06
NIH Announces Funding Plan for '06

The NIH has announced its funding plan for '06 that incorporates their new budget appropriations. Please see the NIH guide notice at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-06-025.html

posted 01/17/06
NIH Salary Cap for FY 2006
The final bill funding NIH for FY 2006 retains the reimbursement salary cap for NIH at the Executive Level I. The Office of Personnel Management announced that for 2006, the Executive Level I salary level would rise to $183,500, up $3,400 over the 2005 level of $180,100. The 2006 Office of Personnel Management tables are at http://www.opm.gov/oca/06tables/index.asp