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Core administrators on recharge funds

  • 1.  Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 03-14-2025 10:52

    Do any of your institutions support core administrators on recharge budgets? We've never done this in the past, but are being asked to begin building those salaries into our cores.



    ------------------------------
    Natasha Nikolaidis
    Associate Director of Operations
    Purdue University
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 03-14-2025 11:15
    Hi Natasha. 
    Yes, we do in our imaging center. Is your core admin centralized or decentralized? 

    Thanks 
    Justine 

    Justine K. Kigenyi, MBA, FACHE

    Administrative Director

    Hoglund Biomedical Imaging Center, University of Kansas Medical Center

    3901 Rainbow Blvd, MS 1052, Kansas City, KS 66160

    Phone: 913-588-9067          

    email: jkarungi@kumc.edu website: www.kumc.edu/hoglund

     






  • 3.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 03-14-2025 11:20

    We are a mix. Some of our cores are under centralized management, with several others out in colleges or departments. This ask would be only for a subset of the centralized cores - it gets a little complicated over here! I may find you for lunch at ABRF in a few weeks to chat. :)



    ------------------------------
    Natasha Nikolaidis
    Associate Director of Operations
    Purdue University
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 03-14-2025 11:25

    I'd be interested in hearing more about this as well. (I'm inviting myself to your lunch...)

     

    Best,

     

    Joe

     

    -----

     

    Joe Dragavon
     
    Director, Advanced Light Microscopy Core 

       BioFrontiers Institute

    Director, Core Facilities and Shared Instrumentation

       Research and Innovation Office
    JSCBB C315

    Teams/Office: 303.735.6988
    Cell: 720.934.2933
    University of Colorado Boulder
     

    Arrange a Consultation or a Meeting: 43ec276be94b4ad5bdb7519f84eda1dc@colorado.edu?anonymous&ep=plink" title="https://outlook.office.com/bookwithme/user/43ec276be94b4ad5bdb7519f84eda1dc@colorado.edu?anonymous&ep=plink">Click Here

    Website: https://advancedimaging.colorado.edu/
    Need an Instrument?:
    https://www.colorado.edu/sharedinstrumentation/core-facilities-collections 

     






  • 5.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 03-14-2025 13:55

    Thanks Natasha and Joe.

     

    Happy to connect at the annual meeting.

     

    See you then,

    Justine

     






  • 6.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 03-16-2025 02:08

    Would love to join as well!



    ------------------------------
    Marjolijn Hameetman
    BSc.
    LUMC
    ------------------------------



  • 7.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 03-17-2025 07:06
    I would love to join too

    Marimar




  • 8.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 03-17-2025 12:00

    I'm happy to join the conversation as well. At VUMC, we have a model of capturing core administrator labor expenses within the core's recharge budget.

     

    Thanks,

    Jessie

     

    Jessie Pirtle, MBA | Assistant Director, OOR Research Finances & Systems

    Office of Research | Vanderbilt University Medical Center

    jessie.pirtle@vumc.org | Phone: 615-875-9914
    www.vumc.org/oor/ | Twitter: @VUMCResearch






  • 9.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 03-17-2025 14:46

    Please include me as well! 



    ------------------------------
    Susanna Perkins
    Exec Director, Research Facilities
    Worcester Polytechnic Institute
    Worcester, MA
    508 831 6577
    ------------------------------



  • 10.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 03-17-2025 17:17

    Thanks, Natasha, for starting this important conversation, and to you all for chiming in and wanting to be part of the conversation.

     

    @Nikolaidis, Natasha N, would Tuesday work well for getting the group together over lunch?

     

    Below is who I show for a lunch meet at the National Meeting:

    1. Natasha Nikolaidis
    2. Jesse Pirtle
    3. Joe Dragavon
    4. Susan Perkins
    5. Marimar Lopez
    6. Christian Riese
    7. Marjolijn Hameetman
    8. Nicole White?
    9. Kara Clissold?
    10. Justine Kigenyi
    11. Andy Chitty?

     

    I will see if Andy Chitty is able to join into this conversation. He is our lead faculty for Rate Setting and Compliance for our ABRF Business Skills Workshop.

     

    Thanks, and see you all in a few days!

     

    Best,

    Justine

     

     

     






  • 11.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 03-18-2025 13:15

    Please add me to the lunch as well!

    Also, I want to throw out there the distinction between Admin Time (e.g. of a core Manager/Director) vs. time for a dedicated Admin person, directly affiliated with the core or split among multiple cores or centralized.

    Josh



    ------------------------------
    Joshua Rappoport
    Executive Director, Research Infrastructure & Operations
    Boston College
    Natick MA
    ------------------------------



  • 12.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 03-18-2025 13:59

    Thanks for the clarification, Josh.   At my old Institution, one of our facilities had a dedicated admin/reception person who scheduled all the projects related to that Facility and they were charged to the Core.   My position and the finance people who worked for me in the central office were not charged to any facilities - all paid out of the Dean's funding.   



    ------------------------------
    Susanna Perkins
    Exec Director, Research Facilities
    Worcester Polytechnic Institute
    Worcester, MA
    508 831 6577
    ------------------------------



  • 13.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 26 days ago

    Hi Natasha,

     

    Please add me to the lunch.

     

    This is my first ABRF meeting. I would like to get chance to know more people in the area and look forward to the discussion.

     

    Best,

    Yan

     

     

    --------------------------------

    Yan Qiu

    Senior Financial Analyst, MBA

    Office for Research, Core Facilities Administration (CFA)

    Northwestern University

    633 Clark Street

    Evanston, IL 60208

    yan.qiu1@northwestern.edu

     

     






  • 14.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 26 days ago

    Welcome, Yan, and thank you for your interest in this topic.

     

    I also wanted to make you aware of our new members' meeting taking place tomorrow, Sunday 3/23 from 3:30-4:30PM PDT in Palace Room 2. It is a great way to hear from ABRF leaders all things ABRF, plus an opportunity to engage and network with peers. Many committees and research groups - including the Finance and Audit Committee, the Sustainability Committee, the Core Administrators' network, Career Development Committee, among others, are looking for new members and volunteers. Feel free to sign up for a committee or RG or gather as much information.

     

    Happy to speak with you about some of these if you want to connect at the new members' meeting.

     

    Thanks

    Justine

     

     






  • 15.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 03-18-2025 14:10

    Sure, let's do Tuesday over lunch! This question got bigger much faster than I thought! Looking forward to seeing everyone next week, and connecting over lunch.



    ------------------------------
    Natasha Nikolaidis
    Associate Director of Operations
    Purdue University
    ------------------------------



  • 16.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 30 days ago

    Please add me to lunch as well. Thanks!



    ------------------------------
    Andy Chitty
    Director, University Shared Resources
    Oregon Health & Science University
    ------------------------------



  • 17.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 28 days ago

    Hi Natasha,

    Please add me to your lunch list!  I look forward to this discussion.

    Best,

    Shawn Kalloway



    ------------------------------
    Shawn Kalloway
    Program Manager- Cancer Center Shared Resources
    Medical College of Wisconsin
    ------------------------------



  • 18.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 27 days ago

    Please add me too if there is room.

     

    Best,

    Shannan






  • 19.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 26 days ago
    There will be marked tables at lunch on Tuesday for this discussion. Anyone who is interested please come join!

    Natasha Nikolaidis
    Purdue University
    West Lafayette, IN




  • 20.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 27 days ago

    I would love to find you for lunch to chat about this as well. It just depends on what day you are planning on doing it, i know there are a lot of pre-topic lunches planned.



    ------------------------------
    Meghan Kraft
    Interim Director of Research Core Strategy
    University of North Carolina
    ------------------------------



  • 21.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 03-15-2025 09:59
    Some of our cores at UNC include partial accountant/business manager support. Some schools/centers also pass down iLab costs to the cores. Mixed bag though, and most who do that are affiliated with a P30.

    Best,

    Kara Clissold
    Associate Director, Office of Research Technologies
    UNC SOM Office of Research Trchnologies





  • 22.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 03-16-2025 10:22

    Hi Natasha and all-

    The high level explanation at KUMC-

    Cores aligned with P30s/U54s or other center/COBRE grants generally have the administrative needs of the core covered on grant support.

    Institutional cores that are not aligned with grant provided admin support have a variety of models, but one that we invoke regularly is inclusion of a percentage of an admin on the recharge rate.  This allows multiple cores to come together to crowd fund a position and do so at a net neutral position to the institution.  There is a "champion" within the institutional leadership team who evaluates and advocates for the size and alignment of the centralized administrative pool.  This also allows cores to flex into and out of utilization of the central pool services based on need (growth or retraction of the core, turn over in unit aligned admin, etc) and for the recharge structure to stay aligned to support.



    ------------------------------
    Michelle Winter
    Assistant Dean of Core Operations
    University of Kansas Medical Center
    ------------------------------



  • 23.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 03-16-2025 10:40
    Hi Everyone,

    Question.  As I know governance is often subject to interpretation :)

    How are some of you including administrative costs in the recharge rate when the activity or labor cannot be directly associated to the service.  Instead, I have always viewed administrative support as indirect cost.  We break things out as indirect labor, indirect materials, and direct labor and direct materials amd allocated according to each service in our cost sheets. 

    For example, an admin does not run a analyzer for which the hourly rate is assessed.  They may provide billing and operations support but that support is not directly related to one service.  It is related to the operations of the facility.  Therefore, I put that in the indirect bucket. 

    Looking for other viewpoints on the interpretation of rate development for costs.  There is 100 ways to fry an egg. 

    Thanks,
    Nicole





  • 24.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 03-16-2025 12:23

    100% agree admin is hard to attribute to individual service lines and if you have a template that allows you to do admin salary as an indirect, that would seem to be optimal. 

    We used to be able to put admin salary in the indirect bucket, but more recently our institution has required that all salary be captured under the direct cost component.  Given this requirement, we do our best to distribute percent effort to each service.  The services with the most billable units, or requiring the most effort from the administrator are weighted accordingly.



    ------------------------------
    Michelle Winter
    Assistant Dean of Core Operations
    University of Kansas Medical Center
    ------------------------------



  • 25.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 03-17-2025 04:11

    Hi Natasha,

    i'm working at a public university in Germany. In our centralized cores we implemented a 3-part-model for most of them. 

    1. Prices for internal users only charge the amount the researches can get of of third-party funds (e.g. for an hour of using an MRI they only can get up to 150€, so we charge 150€ an hour). The actual cost of the CF are not taken into account. 
    2. Prices for external researchers from other universities will be charged with the costs for internal researchers plus a fee for direct costs within the CF. 
    3. Externals users not being researchers at universities have to be charged with full costs (by law). Here we do include all costs related to the CF. If we have core administrators working for 50% within the core, we do include all of these costs as well as overhead surcharge etc. 

    In case there will be another free seat at the lunch table, I'd love to join as well ;-) 

    Hope to see you next week, 

    Christian



    ------------------------------
    Christian Riese
    Assistent to the Vice President for Scientific Research
    Justus Liebig University Giessen
    ------------------------------



  • 26.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 30 days ago

    Yes we do in some cases. Happy to discuss.



    ------------------------------
    Andy Chitty
    Director, University Shared Resources
    Oregon Health & Science University
    ------------------------------



  • 27.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 30 days ago

    Please include me in the lunch as well. We include administrator time in our rate setting and I'd be interested to hear how others are tackling this. Thanks!



    ------------------------------
    Shannan Ho Sui
    Director, Harvard Chan Bioinformatics Core
    Harvard Medical School / Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
    ------------------------------



  • 28.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 30 days ago
    I am giving a Lightning Talk on Tuesday so may not be able to join for the full conversation, but hope someone is willing to take and share some takeaways!


    Kara Clissold
    Associate Director
    Office of Research Technologies
    (M) (410)322-5093






  • 29.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 29 days ago
    We do charge some of the admin expenses for some of our cores





  • 30.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 30 days ago

    Hi Natasha, thanks for introducing this topic.  Across campus, UC Davis is also a mixed model, with some admin carried in the recharge and others in the unit indirects at the department, center, or college level.  In anticipation of a stressful budget year, many cores are bing asked to absorb these admin costs into their rate model, so I would be very interested in hearing how others are (or are not) doing this.  I'm also interested in what counts as admin costs: manager, financial analyst, IT support, etc.?



    ------------------------------
    Isabelle Girard, PhD
    Executive Director
    Research Core Facilities Program
    University of California, Davis
    igirard@ucdavis.edu
    ------------------------------



  • 31.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 29 days ago

    Interested in joining this conversation and possibly extending it to strategies we can adopt during the budgeting process with deans/VPR to ensure we keep staffing levels appropriate and ensure consistent/efficient facility operation and researcher support.



    ------------------------------
    Ian Lightcap
    Research and Facilities Program Director, Materials Characterization Facility, ND Energy
    University of Notre Dame
    ------------------------------



  • 32.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 29 days ago

    Natasha,

    Thank you for starting this string.  This has been such a good discussion, and I am sad that I cannot join the lunch because I will not be in Las Vegas but would love to hear the takeaways.  In my previous position we were one of a group of centralized cores. Our core routinely added a percentage for administration support to each service cost. I doubt that we covered all of our share of those costs. In my current position the cores are not centralized, and the bulk of the admin falls to departmental administrators. Their admin effort is generally not included in rate calculations. Hope everyone has a great time in Las Vegas!

    Thanks,

    Janette



    ------------------------------
    Janette Lamb
    Institutional Research Cores Program Director
    Medical College of Wisconsin
    jlamb@mcw.edu
    ------------------------------



  • 33.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 28 days ago

    Hi Natasha,

    We also have a mix with a couple centralized cores and the remainder are decentralized. At least the centralized cores include business administration effort in the rates and most cores include core director effort.

    I'd be interested in joining the lunch but, since it seems that the table is now mighty full, perhaps someone could summarize the highpoints on this thread?

    Thanks,

    Donna



    ------------------------------
    Donna Crenshaw
    Associate Dean for Basic Science
    Duke University School of Medicine
    ------------------------------



  • 34.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 28 days ago

    Maybe this is a session topic that Debby could add to Pittsburgh next year?  It has generated a great deal of interest.

     

    Janette Lamb PhD | Institutional Research Cores Program Director

    A: MACC 3101

    E:  jlamb@mcw.edu        T: 414 955 8456

     

    A picture containing logo  Description automatically generatedQr code  Description automatically generated

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  • 35.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 28 days ago

    I was thinking the same thing!



    ------------------------------
    Natasha Nikolaidis
    Associate Director of Operations
    Purdue University
    ------------------------------



  • 36.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 28 days ago

    Hi Donna,

       We'll likely have 2-3 tables blocked out at lunch for this group, since it's generated so much interest. We'll all have to take notes - please come!



    ------------------------------
    Natasha Nikolaidis
    Associate Director of Operations
    Purdue University
    ------------------------------



  • 37.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 27 days ago

    Hi Natasha,

    I want to check if you mean like central administrators, faculty directors, or some other administrator.

    Just to clarify so i know how to respond.

    Meghan



    ------------------------------
    Meghan Kraft
    Interim Director of Research Core Strategy
    University of North Carolina
    ------------------------------



  • 38.  RE: Core administrators on recharge funds

    Posted 26 days ago

    Please include me



    ------------------------------
    Inssaf Berkiks
    ------------------------------