Grad students, payroll and effort

[Heather Steen]

As part of a discussion about rebudgeting a grant for post-doc salary, I just had a PI email me and say, "a graduate student can work on this and use the supply funds even if they are not paid by the grant since they only have 50% appointments, but a postdoc cannot do this.  Is that correct?"

I think this is technically correct- a graduate student can have expenses on a project when they are not paid on that proejct.

I really struggle though, with advising faculty on what the best practice is in this case.

Let's say a grad student is working in the lab 40 hours a week, 20 hours as an RA, and 20 hours as a student (I'm in chemistry, hence the lab).

They are working 20 hours a week on proejct A and 10 hours each on projects B and C.

I'm sure this is terrifying form an HR perspective, but to my knowledge, there are not different duties or practices between the work they do as a student and as an RA,, so no easy way to tell what is part of their University effort, and what is outside of that.

The budget for Grant A has funds for a 20/hr per week RA; the budget for grant B has funds for a 10 hr/week Ra, and Grant C has only funds for supplies.

What is the appropriate way to appoint the student?

I could make an argument that they are working 20 hours per week on project A, so all do RA hours can be charged there.  I can make an argument they are working 10 hours per week on proejct B, so Projects A and B shoudl each pay for ten hours.  I can suggest my PI ask to rebudget project C, and my PI can ignore my recommendation.

I'm not a scientist, so in this case, I have no knowledge of how appropriate it is for the student to work on the project in question as part of their education, as opposed to part of their job.  I am to assume it is appropriate, the PI is telling me it is, so do I just confirm it is ok to have the student paid 100% on other projects and charging supplies only to this one?