Advancement · Grants & Funding · Budgets

Salary and fringe
for every person,
every budget year.

List the roles the grant pays, their salaries and effort. The estimator works out each year’s salary and fringe with raises, totals the personnel budget and writes the justification lines reviewers look for.

Build the personnel budgetWhat you get
$12one-time · every device you sign in on
Buy · $12

Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the Grant writer’s desk, $49 for 32 items.

The personnel budget estimator

The worked example is made up: a three-year literacy intervention grant with three roles. Use roles, not names. Nothing you type leaves this browser.

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What you get

Advancement · Grants & Funding$12 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with
Salary and fringe by person and year, yearly totals, full-time equivalents and budget justification lines. It prints as a summary and downloads as a spreadsheet for the budget workbook.
Who it is for
Grant writers and grant managers in schools and districts, nonprofit development and finance staff, and education research teams.
Format
Browser calculator for a phone, tablet or computer, by touch or keyboard. Prints a summary; downloads a spreadsheet (.csv); export and import a file.
Access
$12 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the Grant writer’s desk ($49) and the Advancement Suite pass ($99), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The Grants & Funding space in Caveat Advancement.
Support
Questions, a correction or a request: team@caveatacademic.com.

How to use it

  1. Set the number of budget years, the yearly raise and the default fringe rate.
  2. Add each role with base salary, effort and months.
  3. Type a fringe rate on any line that differs.
  4. Read the yearly totals and FTE.
  5. Copy the justification lines into the budget narrative.

Build the personnel budget

How the budget is built

Base salary, the share of time, and benefits on top.

The worked example: a literacy intervention grantInterventionist, year 1$51,667$62,000 × 100% × 10/12+ fringe 32%$68,200$51,667 × 1.32Year 2 at +3%$70,246$68,200 × 1.03All people, 3 years$345,4081.28 FTEThe worked example: a literacy intervention grantInterventionist, year 1$51,667$62,000 × 100% × 10/12+ fringe 32%$68,200$51,667 × 1.32Year 2 at +3%$70,246$68,200 × 1.03All people, 3 years$345,4081.28 FTE
Each salary line is the person’s base salary times the share of their time the grant buys, for the months it buys; fringe rides on top at the organization’s rate.

Effort and months

A grant pays for the share of a person’s time spent on its work. Base salary times percent effort gives a year’s cost at full months; a 10-month employee such as a school-year interventionist is base × effort × 10 ÷ 12 only if the base is a 12-month figure, so type the salary and months on the same basis. Full-time equivalents add effort × months ÷ 12 across people.

Fringe and federal rules

Fringe benefits (retirement, health insurance, payroll taxes) are charged at the organization’s established rate as a percent of salary. Under the federal cost principles, compensation and fringe are allowable when they are reasonable, follow the organization’s usual policies and are supported by records of the time actually worked on the award.

Sources

  1. Code of Federal Regulations. 2 CFR 200.430, Compensation: personal services, and 200.431, Compensation: fringe benefits (ecfr.gov).
  2. U.S. Department of Education. Grants policy: budget justification and personnel costs in discretionary grant applications (ed.gov).
  3. National Institutes of Health. Grants policy statement: salary and fringe in budgets (grants.nih.gov).
  4. Grants.gov. SF-424A budget information, object class categories a. Personnel and b. Fringe benefits (grants.gov).

The worked example is made up. Follow the funder’s notice of funding and your organization’s rates. Your figures stay in this browser. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.