NIH Salary Cap Changes Effective January 8, 2017
NIH has published updated information regarding the Fiscal Year 2017 salary limitation under NIH Notice NOT-OD-17-049. The direct salary that an individual may receive ("salary cap") under an NIH award is restricted to Executive Level II of the Federal Executive pay scale. The Executive Level II salary level increased from $185,100 to $187,000 effective January 8, 2017.

Going forward, the Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) will use the new salary cap on all new, renewal, supplement, or resubmission NIH proposals. eProposal has been updated to include the new salary cap option: $187,000- FY2017 NIH Salary Cap 01/08/2017-Forward. As a reminder, budget justifications should indicate when personnel are over the salary cap. We anticipate that NIH's additional proposal guidance will mirror NIH Notice NOT-OD-16-045, and NIH will use information in existing submitted applications to make adjustments for the salary cap at the time of award.

The new salary cap may be used for existing awards as described in the NIH Notices. In summary: if the increased salary cap is adopted on existing awards you will be allowed to rebudget funds to accommodate the new cap, however no additional funding will be provided by the sponsor.

Following our normal practice, UCSF will use an effective date of February 1, 2017 (beginning of the first full calendar month) for payroll processing using the new salary cap. The Payroll System and Magical PAF Machine (MPM) have been updated to support this change.

For questions regarding application of the new salary cap proposals, email [email protected]. For questions regarding application of the new salary cap to existing awards, contact CGA Compliance Manager Todd Vizenor at [email protected] or 415.476.8699.