UCAR Facility Usage, Specialized Service Centers and Recharge Center Guidelines

The calculated General Accounting Unit (GAU) is not submitted formally to NSF for approval. Effective FY 2003, the GAU follws new guidelines established by Cliff Jacobs, Program Official, NSF, in his 01/18/02 guidance letter. Although NSF is setting this rate, we will continue to follow the methodology below as a courtesy to the NSF program official who sets the rates.

The GAU (General Accounting Unit) is the unit of common currency that is charged to users who utilize the Scientific Computing Division’s (SCD) general community computing resources. Generally, community computing includes super computers, the Mass Storage System (MSS), and the 1-800 Connect Account.

GAU rates are charged for both external and internal users to allocate costs for the use of SCD computer time. Only those users who are not sponsored by NSF are charged for GAUs. The revenue recovers the non-NSF costs of operations. Institutions from all over the world, including universities, governmental agencies, not for profit agencies and commercial entities rent computer time for scientific purposes.

Like all facilities, GAU usage provides a service or activity essential to UCAR's scientific mission and enhances UCAR's ability to do science. The GAU formula is based on CPU time, the computer factor (assigned to each computer based on its relative compute power), and the job queue charge factor. The standardized and simplified GAU calculation is:

The GAU is intended to be equitable to users as well as beneficial to the mission of NCAR and NSF to provide high-quality computing facilities. If NCAR computing facilities are used in support of non-NSF sponsored activities, NCAR will collect the GAU based on NSF-approved rates. In cases where GAU use would be by non-NSF grantees, but in support of an ATM-supported activity, NSF must approve cosponsorship of all or part of the GAU charge.

Funds recovered through the GAU are held by NCAR in a separate account and reported in the Quarterly Management Information Report available at the UCAR website noted below. Requests for the use of these funds must be submitted in writing to the NSF Program Official with detailed explanations of the planned use. Written approval by the NSF Program Official is required for the use of these funds.

BC (Base Funded Costs): The annual costs, borne by NSF, in the form of base funding (core and focused programs) to maintain and operate a computing facility. These costs include operations staff for core and focused programs, as well as Climate Simulation Lab personnel, data support, technical support, operations, maintenance and applied indirect costs. No equipment costs are included. Reserach and development costs are specifically excluded from the calculation.

CPU Time: Central Processing Unit Time is the general term used to represent processing time on one of the various community computing resources.

Computer Factor: The computer factor is a factor assigned to each of the SCD community computing resources based on its relative compute power.

Estimated GAU Usage: Estimated GAU usage is based on prior years’ actual history of GAU usage and a GAU usage projection of available community computing resources.

GAU: The GAU or General Accounting Unit is a unit of common currency charged to users for utilizing SCD computing resources.

Applied Indirect Costs The appropriate NCAR indirect cost rate that is routinely added to all modified total direct costs.

Queue Factor: The job queue charge factor relates to the charge for different types of computing queues available to users. Available job queues may include interactive, premium, regular, economy, near dedicated, real time and special. For example, users have the option to use the premium queue to expedite turnaround, but they will pay a surcharge for that premium queue.

The calculated System User Rate (SUR) is not submitted formally to NSF for approval. Effective FY 2003, the SUR follows new guidelines established by Cliff Jacobs, Program Official, NSF, in his 01/18/02 guidance letter. Although NSF is setting this rate, we will continue to follow the methodology below as a courtesy to the NSF program official who sets the rates. Note that the NSF has chosen not to use the C-130 SUR methodology at this point.

The purpose for estimating and charging a System User Rate (SUR) is to ensure that each user of the Atmospheric Technology Division (ATD) observing facilities pays its fair share of the costs of maintaining these facilities and that funds are made available (through the SUR) for modest infrastructure (component) replacements, modernization, and upgrades as required. Typical ATD observing facilities include GPS-Loran atmospheric sounding system, airborne imaging microwave radiometer, integrated surface flux facility, integrated sounding system, Doppler radar, scanning aerosol backscatter Lidar, S-Band dual polarization radar and research aircraft.

If NCAR observing facilities are used in support of non-NSF sponsored activities, NCAR will collect the SUR based on NSF-approved rates. In cases where SUR use would be by non-NSF grantees, but in support of an ATM-supported activity, NSF must approve cosponsorship of all or part of the SUR charge.

Funds recovered through the SUR are held by NCAR in a separate account and reported in the Quarterly Management Information Report available at the UCAR website noted below. Requests for the use of these funds must be submitted in writing to the NSF Program Official with detailed explanations of the planned use. Written approval by the NSF Program Official is required for the use of these funds.

Applied Indirect Costs: The appropriate NCAR indirect cost rate that is routinely added to all modified total direct costs.

BC (Base Funded Costs): The annual costs, borne by NSF in the form of base (core and focused programs) funding to maintain and operate an observing system. These include all direct field support costs, development costs, a prorated share of the ATD Director's Office and Research Data Program (RDP) direct costs, and applied indirect costs. No equipment or applied indirect costs are included. Reserach and development costs are specifically excluded from the calculation.

DA (Days Available): The total normal workdays available in the fiscal year as established by NSF-ATM:

Division Indirect Cost Budget: The indirect cost budget that is allocated to each management unit (division) to cover the annual indirect labor and non-labor administrative expenses of that unit.

b. Alternate Rates: There are significant variations in the complexity and duration of field programs. This in turn affects the labor effort that must be applied and the size of the base-funded field crew that is required. Accordingly, the methodology must include a way to adjust the SUR to reflect these higher or lower labor requirements.

Although not applied in recent years, previous analysis of actual NCAR field labor costs had indicated that alternate rates approximately 40% higher and 40% lower would cover the extreme cases of field effort. Therefore, an alternate lower rate of 60% of the Standard Rate and an alternate higher rate of 140% of the Standard Rate may be appropriate and applied, subject to NSF Program Official and Grants and Agreements Officer approval.

Aircraft Maintenance Rate (AMR)

Methodology:

The purpose for estimating and charging an AMR is to ensure that each user of ATD aircraft pays its fair share of the costs of maintaining these aircraft and that funds are made available (through the AMR) for variable or flight-related maintenance expenses that are not covered by NSF base funds. Current research aircraft include an EC-130Q Hercules and a High-performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research (HIAPER) Gulfstream V. Reference the related links below.

Effective FY 1999, the Aircraft Maintenance Rate (AMR) computation follows new guidelines established by Cliff Jacobs, Program Official, NSF in his 03/19/98 guidance letter.

The majority of aircraft maintenance costs is considered fixed and is reflected in the annual ATD base (core and focused programs) budget. There are additional maintenance requirements resulting from actual flight hours and these are considered variable costs to be funded through the AMR which is charged to all users of the aircraft.

Definitions:

Aircraft Maintenance Costs: The annual costs incurred by ATD for the necessary maintenance of the aircraft facilities. Maintenance costs are considered either fixed (funded through ATD’s base program) or variable (funded through the AMR). For NSF users, the Deployment Pool pays the AMR.

AMR - Aircraft Maintenance Rate: A charge per unit time (flight hour) made to all users (both NSF and non-NSF users) of ATD aircraft facilities only. The AMR collects funds from users to pay for costs incurred by ATD for necessary variable maintenance costs that are not base-funded by NSF.

Deployment Pool: A fund provided by NSF to pay for deployment of NSF National Lower-Atmospheric Observing Facilities (including ATD facilities) for NSF users.

Fixed Maintenance Costs: Maintenance costs required to maintain aircraft as flight ready. Includes maintenance salaries, quarterly and four to five year inspections, parts and supplies, planned rebuilds, replacement parts, routine maintenance, engine overhaul/emergency set asides, outside contract support, and indirect costs applied. The System User Rate (SUR) is charged to ensure that each user of the ATD observing facilities pays its fair share of the costs of maintaining these facilities and that funds are made available (through the SUR) for modest infrastructure (component) replacements, modernization, and upgrades as required.

Indirect Costs Applied:The NCAR indirect cost rate applied to modified total direct costs.

NSF User: Any UCAR, NCAR, UOP or university user whose project is involved with atmospheric or oceanic sciences, regardless of the funding source. NSF considers such activities to be consistent with its programmatic goals, even if they are funded by other agencies.

PPU - Planned Potential Use: The estimated annual number of hours that the facility can be safely and effectively operated and maintained by ATD's NSF base-funded staff. Where possible, historical data will be used as a factor in estimating PPU to the extent that this is reasonable.

VMC - Variable Maintenance Costs: Maintenance costs related to actual flight hours and include maintenance salaries, use-related repairs and parts, and indirect costs applied.

Variances: Represents the difference between AMR cost recovery (revenues) and the actual variable maintenance expenses. The AMR variance is monitored monthly by the Budget & Planning Office and is subject to review by an internal management committee called the Business Management Working Group (BMW). Reference ‘Sample Analysis’ below. The AMR fiscal year end variance is carried forward into the following fiscal year.

Service Centers

Methodology:

Division computing service centers were established within the framework of “Service Centers” in OMB Circular A-122. The goal is to distribute scientific computing support costs to a division’s program in an equitable and efficient way. In the absence of a computing system that can automatically track the hours of use at each workstation by project, work-time hours, which are readily available, will be used as the allocation base. This is done because the costs of division computing systems are believed to be more directly a function of the time spent by individuals in their research and administrative activities.

CSC Rate: Charge per work-time hour required to cover the operating costs of the division computing service center, based on estimated number of hours worked in a division.

Division Computing System: A networked system or set of sub-systems (multiple servers and/or centralized printers) that supports generally the division’s science programs, and also typically serves all or some activities in administration including Bid & Proposal activity. This system is the core infrastructure of a division’s computing support for its staff. The costs of this system do not include the costs of the desktop tools of the end-users of the system, e.g., workstations, terminals, PCs, and their associated printers and software costs.

Equipment Depreciation: Depreciated costs of the acquisitions of servers, printers, and other system hardware costing $5,000 or more. This equipment is acquired using UCAR’s debt-financed funding established for the acquisition of general purpose equipment. This depreciation expense currently applies to some of the CSCs. A CSC may also incur its fair share allocation of bond interest expense,
bond issuance costs and bond administrative costs, such as trustee fees. Direct equipment purchases are not allowed within the CSC, according to government regulations concerning Specialized Service Centers.

Indirect Costs Applied: The overhead rate applied to modified total direct costs.

Materials and Supplies: Consumables such as printer paper, toner, disks, cartridges and other items associated directly with the system, and other small items that are widely used, purchased in bulk quantities for division staff, and costly to charge by transaction to individual programs.

Networked items costing below $5,000 each, includes gateway servers, wiring, routers, other network peripherals and system upgrades. This also includes file and data servers, and associated upgrade costs for equipment used by multiple fund sources and programs, as long as the networked items cost less than $5,000.

Printers for multiple users costing below $5,000 include high-speed printers and color printers accessible to scientific and administrative staff generally.

Operating Budget: Costs of the division computing support function, including system staff, materials, supplies, purchase services, travel and depreciated equipment acquisition costs.

Costs that are NOT INCLUDED in the operating costs of a division computing service center are illustrated by the following:

Purchased Services: Services acquired to support the system or network, Ethernet services, e-mail service, and Internet access.

Software and site licenses that are purchased to support all or most staff and which are therefore not susceptible to charging directly to each program on a transaction basis or according to degree of use.

Maintenance and repair costs for system hardware and software. Includes maintenance contracts that support all or most staff and which are therefore not susceptible to charging directly to each program on a transaction basis or according to degree of use.

System Staff Costs: Salaries and Benefits of personnel whose functions are to maintain the network server or other general use servers (utilized by multiple programs) and provide general computing support to division staff. Examples are System Administrators, and other centralized computing staff (including non-technical staff) that support the system administrator, or whose functions include maintaining and supporting the division's system(s).

Travel: Travel costs of personnel who maintain the division computing system.

Variances: Represents the difference between CSC cost recovery (revenues) and operating expenses. Divisional CSC variances are monitored monthly by the Budget & Planning Office and are subject to review by an internal management committee called the Business Management Working Group (BMW). Reference ‘Sample Analysis’ below. CSC fiscal year end variances are carried forward into the following fiscal year.

Work-time Labor Hours: Represents the allocation base used to distribute the CSC operating costs to division programs, projects, and administrative activities. Work-time labor hours are defined as the hours directly charged to division activities by division staff except those assigned to computing system support. These hours do not include holiday, vacation, sick leave, and other non-work time hours.

The function of the Machine Shop is to provide specialized mechanical equipment and component fabrication for scientists and engineers in development and operations of field program activities. The rationale for developing an ATD Machine Shop Rate is to ensure that each user of the Machine Shop pays its fair share of the costs associated with the operation of the shop.

Excluded from the denominator are NSF base-funded costs, which include Direct Mechanical Design and Logistics Support. The Direct Mechanical Design costs are excluded because of the need for consistent high quality design work, which is not possible, if the costs are included in the rate.

Logistics Support, although organizationally part of Design and Fabrication Services (DFS), is not considered a service related to the Machine Shop and therefore is not included in the Machine Shop rate. Costs associated with Design Services and Logistics Services are NSF base-funded for NSF programs.

Both NSF users and non-NSF users pay the Machine Shop rate. In addition the non-NSF users pay a SUR fee, as explained above. For the purpose of this methodology, an “NSF user” is defined as any NCAR, UCAR, or university user whose project is involved with atmospheric or oceanic science (see Definitions section below).

Direct Design Services: Services provided for the design of specialized mechanical equipment and components. These services are base-funded for NSF users.

Indirect Costs Applied: The overhead rate applied to modified total direct costs.

Logistics Support: Support services for field programs. Includes packing, shipping of equipment and components to field programs, setting up equipment at field sites, and maintenance of all logistics equipment (trucks, trailers, forklifts, cranes, etc). Funded primarily by NSF base funds for NSF programs. Non-NSF programs using Logistics Services are direct charged.

Non-Labor Expenses: Miscellaneous supplies including but not limited to cleaning materials, minor maintenance, cutting oil and other services needed for the day-to-day operation of the Machine Shop. Excludes materials for Machine Shop used in producing equipment.

Operating Budget: Expenses associated with the day to day operation of the Machine Shop, which include salary and benefits for the machinists, non-labor expenses and indirect costs applied. Machinist salaries and benefits include all work time which encompasses production and non-production. Examples of non-production activities are time spent in meetings, training, safety, and routine maintenance.

Production Hours: Hours estimated to be spent in actual production including time spent at field programs and travel associated with the field programs. Excludes non-work time such as vacation, sick leave, holiday and other non-work time that is included in the Benefit Cost Pool. Production hours also exclude non-production work time such as time spent in meetings, training, safety, and routine maintenance.

Variances: Represents the difference between Machine Shop cost recovery (revenues) and operating expenses. Machine Shop variances are monitored monthly by the Budget & Planning Office and are subject to review by an internal management committee called the Business Management Working Group (BMW). Reference ‘Sample Analysis’ below. Machine Shop fiscal year end variances are carried forward into the following fiscal year.

Methodology:

The Imaging and Design Center (IDC) is a centralized facility providing all UCAR staff convenient and cost effective design, photographic, and reprographic services. Services may be provided in-house or brokered to outside sources depending on user needs and costs. A per piece cost is charged for impressions using black and white copiers or color copies. An hourly rate is charged for various design services.

Examples of IDC services include photocopying and printing, web design, photographic shoots, slide, print, and video production, and exhibits, just to name a few services. IDC also maintains an extensive archive of photographic and image files in digital and print formats.

Budgeted Pieces: Estimated number of impressions in black and white or color to be requested by customers; based on previous experience and projections of activity.

Hourly Rate: Cost per hour required to cover the operating costs of the Imaging and Design Center. These costs are based on estimated number of production hours for the Center.

Indirect Costs Applied: The overhead rate applied to modified total direct costs.

Non-Labor Expenses: Miscellaneous supplies and services needed for day-to-day operations such as toner, developing chemicals, equipment leases, and maintenance costs.

Operating Budget: Expenses associated with day-to-day operation of the Imaging and Design Center, which include salary and benefits and non-labor expenses and associated overhead.

Pass Through Costs: Costs associated with purchase of paper materials and mailing supplies are provided to all UCAR divisions at cost. These costs are direct-charged, i.e. passed through, to UCAR programs and non-UCAR users and are not included in the chargeback center budget or rate calculation.

Production Hours: Total hours available for design services portion of IDC. These hours are calculated by reducing total department work hours for the time associated with training, department meetings, software maintenance and updating, and other institution-wide activities, such as staff participation on committees.

Variances: Represents the difference between IDC cost recovery (revenues) and operating expenses. IDC variances are monitored monthly by the Budget & Planning Office and are subject to review by an internal management committee called the Business Management Working Group (BMW). Reference ‘Sample Analysis’ below. IDC fiscal year end variances are carried forward into the following fiscal year.

University Corporation for Atmospheric Research

Guidelines for Facility Usage, Service Centers,
and Recharge Center

Table of Contents

Facility Usage Rates

Scientific Computing Division

Atmospheric Technology Division

Service Centers

Division Computing Service Centers (CSC)

Machine Shop

Recharge Centers

Imaging and Design Center

Facility Usage Rates

Scientific Computing Division
General Accounting Unit