Faculty Incentive Program.

The SPH Faculty Incentive Program is intended to reward faculty who exceed salary coverage expectations and/or serve as PI for awards with the full on-campus indirect rate  Primary faculty are eligible for this program provided that their level of engagement is an average of at least 50% FTE during the 12 month period of performance (i.e. full calendar year). Associate deans and faculty who are no longer employed by SPH at the time of disbursement are not eligible. Reward payments will be calculated at the end of each calendar year to align with the AFR process. Recognizing that our faculty contribute in many different ways, the program does not focus on specific types of activity but rather on salary coverage and external funding in general, providing all eligible faculty the opportunity to benefit from the program.

Part A. Exceeding salary coverage expectations. Faculty who exceed their salary coverage expectation for the calendar year, as per the school-wide rubric for salary coverage, will receive a reward payment equal to 50% of the overage. For example, suppose a faculty member has an annual base salary of $160,000 and an initial coverage plan that includes 45% teaching, 45% external funding, and 10% service and citizenship. If at the end of the calendar year their actual total coverage is 115%, due to any additional activities associated with 15% salary coverage (e.g., teaching an additional course, adding new external funding, directing a PhD program), then the reward payment would be $12,000 (i.e., half of the 15% overage). The effort committed to externally funded projects should generally not exceed 90%; however, for faculty focused entirely on externally funded activities (ie no teaching or administrative responsibilities), the effort committed to externally funded projects may be as high as 95%.

Part B. Revenue sharing. Principal investigators who receive external funding with the full on-campus indirect rate (currently 65%) will receive a reward payment equal to 10% of the total indirect costs (IDCs). The reward payment will be based on actual IDCs received by SPH during the calendar year, not the total awarded amount. Outgoing subcontracts will be excluded since SPH does not receive the associated IDCs. For example, if a faculty member is PI of full IDC awards (prime awards and/or subawards) that bring $200,000 of IDCs to SPH during the calendar year, then the reward payment would be $20,000 (i.e., 10% of the total IDCs). Since the University system only tracks the contact PI of each award, the IDC of multi-PI awards will be credited to the contact PI; however, the contact PI has the option to reallocate a portion of the reward payment to other PIs based at SPH with permission from the Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Advancement. Similarly, the PI of program projects or center grants has the option to reallocate portions of the reward payment to the SPH faculty leads of the multiple components with permission from the Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Advancement. In these cases, the transfer of discretionary funds are not limited to the $4,000 cap specified in Section VIII.3.

Calculation of final reward payment. The total reward payment from both scenarios above (Part A + Part B) will be reduced to cover (a) the deficit of any overspent grant for which the faculty member is PI, (b) the portion of the faculty member’s salary that is allocated to a sponsored award but not covered by the award due to a salary cap, (c) the costs associated with a faculty salary coverage shortfall during the calendar year, and (d) the amount of institutional support already provided by SPH in support of the award (i.e. cost-sharing commitment, which already represents a return on IDCs).

Disbursement of final reward payment. The final reward payment will be will be issued on July 1 of the following year, allowing time for the necessary administrative steps and to align with the annual deposit of discretionary funds. Faculty may elect to receive up to 25% of the total reward payment as overbase pay (i.e., additional income) and the remainder will be deposited to their individual discretionary account. For example, in the scenarios above, the total reward payment would be $32,000 (i.e., $12,000 from Part A and $20,000 from Part B, assuming no reductions are necessary). Up to $8,000 could be taken as an overbase payment and the remaining $24,000 would be deposited to the faculty member’s discretionary account.

Faculty who take a school-approved leave of absence (ie sabbatical, maternity leave, sick leave) are eligible for both Parts A and B of the incentive program, with the faculty member’s salary considered to be appropriately covered during the leave period. However, faculty will only be rewarded for exceeding salary coverage expectations during the portion of the year when they are not on leave.

The school can modify incentive payments if necessitated by fiscal realities in any given year.