What You Need to Do if You Get Stimulus Funds

<< previous · NIAID and the Economic Recovery Act · next >>

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Before You Can Get Stimulus Money
• Change Your Mindset for Spending
• How to Conduct a Two-Year Research Project
  • Grants Policy Differences Between ARRA and Other Grants
• Possibly Two Types of Funding
• Special Reporting Requirements
  • ARRA Reporting Table
• Additional Progress Report Requirements
• Send Feedback to NIAID
  • How Have ARRA Funds Helped You?
  • ARRA Success Stories

Introduction

If we notify you that you are eligible for stimulus funds, you'll need the information on this page. As part of this historic opportunity, you'll have new responsibilities and requirements. 

Why? Stimulus funds are intended to stimulate the economy, so you will need to show that your research has helped the government accomplish that goal. It is very important that we all rise to the challenge and show taxpayers that NIH's stimulus money was a worthy investment.

Before You Can Get Stimulus Money

Stimulus funds come with special rules described in NIH's Standard Terms and Conditions for ARRA Awards. These include new reporting requirements just for stimulus money, so read this information carefully.

You have to accept all requirements that you receive as a condition of award and continued funding.

Standard grants policies and practices apply, for example, expanded authorities, salary caps, and use of the streamlined noncompeting award process, as well as special ones -- see Grants Policy Differences Between ARRA and Other Grants.

Before we can fund your grant, you will need to provide a detailed budget so we can track your outlays and our funds appropriately.

• If your budget is modular, we will ask you to submit a detailed budget. You will not need a budget justification unless the budget has changed.
• If you need administrative or clerical services to support your ARRA reporting and management requirements, do not include them as direct costs. We will pay them as facilities and administrative costs.
• Make sure you list the same people and other items in the detailed budget as in your original budget to avoid creating discrepancies we will need to resolve.

Change Your Mindset for Spending

Forget old ways of conducting your business. PIs can't take months to ramp up for the research. The law requires recipients to spend the money quickly to stimulate the economy.

The stimulus comes with new responsibilities. To play by the rules, do the following:

• Spend the stimulus money quickly (as well as appropriately). Remember, these funds are meant to be spent on ready-to-go projects, so act immediately.
• We expect PIs to ramp up their project and start spending money as soon as they get it. PIs may need to quickly hire staff, purchase reagents, or convene additional meetings such as institutional review boards.
• We will be very vigilant about how grantees are spending the money. They may be penalized for unobligated balances -- for example, we may reduce second-year funds.

We expect you to do whatever it takes to move quickly while using funds in a way that is appropriate and transparent. Be sure to read Don't Confuse Stimulus Money With Our Regular Budget.

How to Conduct a Two-Year Research Project

If you applied for a four- or five-year grant but received a two-year award, conduct the research as planned for the first two years, as described in the application.

Note that when your ARRA grant ends, you will cannot carry over money to your next regular grant. The converse is also true: you cannot carry over from a regular grant to your ARRA award.

If you have ARRA funds left, report them as an unobligated balance. While we are not expecting you to have a large unobligated balance, if you do, you can initiate a no-cost extension. Keep in mind that a no-cost extension will delay your next non-ARRA award.

In any case, you may not mix money from your regular grant with stimulus funds. See other Grants Policy Differences Between ARRA and Other Grants.

Possibly Two Types of Funding

In some cases, we awarded grants with two years of stimulus money and later years with regular appropriated funds. Recipients who have these grants are working under two sets of requirements they need to comply with.

Special Reporting Requirements

Each quarter, ARRA recipients must report cumulative award data with much more detailed information than is normally required for NIH grants.

Whether receiving ARRA funds as a grantee or a subawardee, institutions must register at FederalReporting.Gov.

If you miss a reporting deadline, there may be serious repercussions, including suspension of your funding.

While your institution is responsible for online reports, principal investigators may play a significant role in preparing them. Find out what your institution expects.

Here are the details:

If your institution receives an ARRA award, it’s called a “prime recipient” and has to report the following items:

• Project description.
• Project status.
• Number and description of jobs created.
• Total federal ARRA expenditure.
• Total federal non-ARRA expenditure.
• Total non-federal share of your expenditure.
• Details on subawards and other payments.

Your institution also needs to report the same information for subawards.  It can delegate this responsibility to subawardee institutions, called “subrecipients,” but either way it's still responsible for the quality of the data.

You need to provide detailed information about subawardees and vendors of equipment who receive $25,000 or more. For purchases under $25,000 total, you can aggregate the data.

Primes and subrecipients have to file a report with FederalReporting.gov for every quarter, including the first quarter of an ARRA award -- no matter how short the time frame or whether funds were used.

For example, an institution with an award issued on September 30 must report for the October deadline. If time is too short for a meaningful report, indicate “Not Started” as the project status and “0” for the data.

See the full reporting schedule in the table below.

ARRA Reporting Table

You have two options for data entry: 1) insert the data to the Web page or 2) use an Excel spreadsheet. Most items you will not need to update each quarter.

Tips for Reporting

Here's our advice to ease your way:

• Set up a process. Because the reporting window is only 10 days, be prepared ahead of time. Have a process in place to collect the data for each submission, including with your subs if needed.
• Prepare for busy systems. All federal grantees will use the site, so expect it to be very busy during the reporting window.
  • Have your data ready as soon as the reporting period starts since it may take several attempts to enter your data.
  • After the reporting window closes, the site will be locked, and you will not be able to add or change anything.

For help getting detailed information needed for your report, go to Department of Health and Human Services HHS Recovery Act Recipient Reporting Readiness Tool.

Read more about requirements in NIH's Standard Terms and Conditions for ARRA Awards. Go to NIH's Recovery Act Recipient Reporting and OMB's Recovery Act.

Additional Progress Report Requirements

ARRA awards must comply with both Recovery Act reporting requirements and the existing NIH reporting requirements.

For your annual progress report, you must submit the following separately for your ARRA award:

• Financial reporting -- SF 272 and Financial Status Reports.
• Targeted/Planned Enrollment Table and Inclusion Enrollment Report for each clinical research protocol funded with ARRA funds. Label the funding source on each of these. This reporting requirement takes effect on publication.
• Closeout documents when the ARRA funding ends -- Final Progress Report, Final Financial Status Report, and Final Invention Statement. For supplements, these are required even when the parent grant continues. 

Send Feedback to NIAID

After your award has yielded results, complete the survey at How Have ARRA Funds Helped You? We post responses at ARRA Success Stories.

<< previous · NIAID and the Economic Recovery Act · next >>

The information on this page is specific to NIAID. For NIH-level information, see NIH and the ARRA, which includes NIH-wide Grant Funding Opportunities Supported by ARRA. For other institutes, see Institutes, Centers, and Offices.

To keep up with news, visit our log of Recent Changes to the NIAID and the Economic Recovery Act Section or Subscribe to get email updates.