Grant Services offers comprehensive post-award support to the College of Humanities and Social Sciences community after a grant is awarded. Grants Services is essential in supporting faculty with the management of grants for educational and research activities. We will provide interested faculty and staff with a wide variety of supportive services and assistance that includes assisting with grant hiring, purchasing, travel requests, managing grant budgets, and compliance. Our goal is to provide exceptional resources to help expand our research portfolio as well as ensure a robust research experience for both faculty and students.
The Grants & Contracts Specialist provides post-award support to CHSS grant recipients. Services
include:
- Assisting PI’s with managing grant budgets and compliance
- Assisting with budget amendments, purchasing and requisitioning, and procurement
- Supporting PI’s with management of indirect cost accounts
- Trouble shooting any grant related issues
- Coordinating hiring, timekeeping, tracking and payments for grant-funded personnel, student workers,
independent contractors, consultants and research assistants
- Supporting the development, review and approval of college-level contracts for external revenue,
consultants, and affiliations
- Provides support for external contracts and procurement contracts that require legal review
- Ensure timely preparation of expenditure reports in conjunction with Grants Accounting
Links For Faculty
Workday Tasks for Hiring Students
- If PI’s are hiring students or temporary employees to work on the grant, PI’s have to be accountable for the student/employee’s time by checking their Workday inbox prior to each pay period end date to review and approve hours
- PI’s need to be aware of position end dates for their employees and if a position is set to expire in Workday, they should request a position extension through the Dean’s Office
- Be mindful of your grant end date and whether you need to end positions prior to the grant end date. Payments for students/employees need to be charged to the grant before it ends.
Budget & Pay for Hiring Students
- PI’s should be keeping a separate tracking or budget document noting the proposed and cumulative hours for employees so they stay on budget
- PI’s should be aware of fringe and changing pay rates (due to minimum wage, etc). Fringe needs to be properly budgeted and adjusted if hours increase.
Hourly Limits for Student Employees
- PI’s should be aware of the limitations on student workers during the academic year
- Undergraduate students are limited to 20 hrs. per week during academic year across all university positions. Does the student have a secondary position in another unit and if so, how are you balancing those hours across two positions as to not exceed 20 hrs.
- Graduate students are limited to 30 hrs. a week across all positions at the university, however if the graduate student also holds a “Graduate Assistantship” through The Graduate School, they may not be eligible to take another position under your grant. All secondary positions to a GA-ship require pre-approval by The Graduate School, Assistant Dean, Laura Valente.
Student Employee Access
- Students/grant funded employees are not eligible to be issued computers by the college or university. All computers must be supplied by the PI. If computers are supplied for use, they must be returned to the PI/college on the last date of their employment in good working condition.
- Students/grant employees may be given access to your private lab or another campus space that you occupy for grant related purposes. Please contact the Dean’s Office for further information on granting limited access to students/employees while they are working on your grant. Similarly, when students/employees stop working on your grant, access needs to be removed. Please contact the Dean’s Office to have access removed.
If you have been hired by a principal investigator of a grant, you will need to do the following:
- Communicate all necessary hiring information to the CHSS Dean’s Office staff who are managing your hire and complete all necessary HR paperwork and I-9 verification.
- Once your position is active, complete weekly timesheets noting the hours you have worked in accordance with the schedule supplied by your supervisor/PI.
- As each pay period is ending, officially submit your hours for review and approval by the deadline noted in the payroll calendar. You can find the payroll calendar here.
- Time entry is the responsibility of the student and if you miss entering hours, we cannot guarantee payment on a later date.
- Make sure your hours are entered accurately and if hours are sent back to you with changes, please be sure to make changes in a timely manner as to not delay your payment.
- Undergraduate students are limited to 20 hours per week during the academic year across all university positions. If you do hold a secondary position in another unit be sure to communicate that to your supervisor and balance your hours as to not exceed 20 hours per week.
- Graduate students are limited to 30 hours a week across all positions at the university. If you hold a secondary position in another unit be sure to balance your hours as to not exceed 30 hours per week. *** If you hold a Graduate Assistant position through The Graduate School then you may not be eligible to take another position under a grant. All secondary positions to a GA-ship require pre-approval by The Graduate School, Assistant Dean, Laura Valente.
- Student workers are not issued university computers. Any computers supplied to you to perform the grant work must be returned in good working condition to the PI on the last day of your employment.
- Student workers may be given access to research labs spaces, as requested by the PI. Please ask your PI/supervisor to email carusoj@montclair.edu for ID card access to grant-related spaces. In some cases, keys and other forms of access are granted directly by the PI.
- The department must complete a Contract Approval Sheet (CAS) and obtain signatures from its Vice President/Dean before submitting it to Procurement Services. The departmental representative must sign the portion of the contract initiation at CAS. Procedures for Obtaining Legal Review and Approval of Contracts
- The department must request from the supplier to sign or provide redlines to the Montclair State University Standard Terms and Conditions Document which can be found here.
- The department provides to the procurement buyer the signed CAS, the signed or amended T&C document and the contract. After the buyer, based on price and other factors, determines the procurement method and checks if the supplier is compliant with all State Requirements sends all documents to the University Counsel.If the University Counsel modifies the contract and/or terms and conditions document, the department will relay all the changes to the supplier. After reviewing and approving the contract, and upon the supplier’s signature on the University’s terms and conditions document, the University Counsel will proceed to sign the Contract Approval Sheet.Only the University’s President and Vice President for Finance are authorized to sign a contract involving the purchase of goods and services by the University, and no contract may be signed without University Counsel’s approval.
Once the contract is signed, the department must keep the contract for their records. Currently procurement is not responsible for storing or managing deleted contracts.
- In case of IT-SaaS related Contracts the requesting department shall request from the supplier:
- HECVAT (version 3.x) and the requestor must complete HECVAT Review Request Form. Both Forms must be submitted to the Chief Information
Security Officer or to the procurement department.
- Vendor Assessment (HECVAT) – Information Technology Division – Montclair
State University
- VPAT Form, which has to be provided by the supplier to the department and
then submitted by the department to the IT Director.
- IT signs the Contract Approval Sheet after HECVAT&VPAT are approved.
