Grant Budget Revision Policy

Background

The Wisconsin Partnership Program (WPP) works with grant recipients to establish an initial budget totaling no more than the award amount approved by the Oversight and Advisory Committee (OAC) and/or the Partnership Education and Research Committee (PERC). Grant budgets include the following expenditure categories: salary and fringe benefits, travel, consultant/contracts, and supplies and other expenses. It may be determined at any time during the grant period — by WPP or by the grant recipient — that a budget revision is necessary to accomplish the aims of the grant.

Definitions

Period of agreement: Period of time between the grant start date and the grant end date specified in the Memorandum of Understanding and Grant Agreement (Agreement). If a no cost extension is granted by the Wisconsin Partnership Program, the period of agreement extends through the no cost extension end date.

Policy

Budget revisions may be initiated by WPP or by the recipient at any time during the period of agreement. Recipients have a certain degree of latitude to budget within and between categories to meet unanticipated needs. However, recipients are required to submit a revised budget for approval by WPP if expenses between major budget categories (salary and fringe benefits, travel, consultants/contracts, and supplies and other expenses) change by ten percent or more of the total amount of award.

There are also expenses identified in the allowable/unallowable cost policy that may require pre-approval from WPP. Recipients are required to discuss these costs with a member of the WPP finance team before they can be claimed and reimbursed as an expense on the award.

Procedures

Before the rebudgeting process can begin, recipients must contact their assigned Program Officer and/or a member of the WPP Finance team to discuss the proposed revision. If the request is to re-budget within the original scope of work, a Budget Revision amendment will be added to the Fluxx portal. If the WPP Administrative Leadership team determines that the proposed request represents a change in the original scope of work, a change of scope of work amendment will be created. See (Policy) on changes to scope of work.

Requests to re-budget between major budget categories greater than or equal to ten percent of the total award must be submitted as a grant amendment in Fluxx.

The WPP Finance team will initially review the request to confirm funding availability, reasonableness and allowability. The request will then be forwarded to the Program Officer, who will review the request for appropriateness and reasonability within the original scope of work for the project.  If concerns are identified, the WPP Administrative Leadership Team will be consulted before a final decision is made. Grantees will be notified of a decision within thirty days of submitting the request.

Grantees will receive a notice of approval from a member of the WPP administrative staff, which will include a bundled copy of the approved budget and budget justification.

For changes to the budget less than 10% of the total award, recipients are not required to seek approval for budget revision. However, a copy of the most recent budget should be provided to the WPP Administrative team to aid in the ease of review of post award expenditures.