Budget revisions may be necessary to meet changing or unforeseen needs of a sponsored project. Some Federal sponsors are liberal in their re-budgeting policies and, under Expanded Authorities, may allow the UNH SPA to approve various financial changes. Other Federal sponsors provide UNH with limited re-budgeting authority or require prior written approval from the sponsor for certain types of budget revisions. State of NH agencies and private foundations are quite restrictive and allow for minor re-budgeting or require prior written approval for all budget revisions. Thus, the reviewer/approver should consult the sponsor terms/conditions for the specific award and/or, for federal programs, the SPA-maintained “Matrix of Requested Actions and Federal Sponsor Requirements.” If questions remain, the reviewer/approver is encouraged to contact the responsible SPA Grant and Contract Administrator (GCA) before processing the revision.
Because the Project Director (PD) shares in the institution’s financial responsibility for sponsored programs expenditures, the Business Service Center (BSC) must have the PD’s documented request, justification, and authorization prior to initiating a budget revision. The BSC is responsible for maintaining the necessary documentation supporting the approval of the budget revision and shares responsibility for adhering to all USNH policies, specific sponsor award terms and conditions, and other prevailing regulations.
When a budget revision is requested by the PD, the following procedures must be followed:
If sponsor approval is required, SPA’s GCA works with the PD (and BSC where appropriate) to document the need for the budget revision and to seek sponsor approval. All requests to the sponsor for budget revisions should include a comparison of the current approved budget to the proposed new budget, with a programmatic explanation for the change. Sponsor approval notices are maintained in SPA in the official UNH award files. SPA provides the BSC and PD with copies of all such sponsor approvals, as well as notifications of SPA’s approval or denial of each request for prior approval processed by SPA.
For sponsor-approved budget revisions, SPA documents the budget revisions in the UNH financial accounting system. If neither sponsor approval nor SPA approval is required for a proposed budget revision, SPA will make no change to the approved budget in the UNH financial accounting system.
