SU/VA Resources

Faculty in the UTL, MCL or NTL lines who work at the VA are a full-time Stanford faculty, plus they have a VA appointment that is described as between 1/8 to 8/8ths.

100% of their overall effort is a combination of their SU & VA appointments.

The VA and PAVIR use the term “Dually Appointed Persons” (DAPs) for those individuals who hold a coterminous Stanford faculty and VA appointment

VA appointments are categorized in eighths and based on a 40 hour work week. Each VA eighth represents 5 hours.

Parity is the portion of a faculty’s salary that is paid by Stanford University.  As of FY2020, it does not include supplemental pay. If you are managing an SU-VA faculty’s labor schedule, you must remember to include any supplemental pay in determining salary over the cap (B+V+A).

Parity is managed by SoM Faculty Compensation Group. For more information see:

Faculty Comp - Other Compensation Considerations

Faculty Comp - VA Parity FAQs

Per RPH 3.2, the 5% minimum that must be reserved for non-sponsored activities at Stanford is based on 100% FTE.

For SU-VA faculty, pro-rate that minimum based on the Stanford appointment %.

For example, for an 6/8ths faculty, they would need to reserve at least 2.5% (5%*50%) for non-sponsored activities at Stanford (admin, teaching, clinical).

Remember that this is a minimum requirement – faculty must reserve the level of effort for non-sponsored activities commensurate with their duties.

The amount that must be reserved for non-sponsored activities by the VA is determined by the VA, not by Stanford.

There are two categories of MOU’s: Institutional and Individual.

Institutional MOU

The institutional MOU is updated annually and signed by the Medical Director of the Veterans Administration Palo Alto Health Care System (VAPAHCS) and the SoM Senior Associate Dean of Finance and Administration.

DFAs in the SoM may obtain a copy of the Institutional MOU by requesting from the Financial Compliance Manager assigned to their department.  This document should not be distributed further.

Individual MOU

The VA Office of Research & Development provides guidance on the Individual MOU here: Time Effort MOU Guidance.

Process for requesting & updating an Individual MOU with PAVIR

This process is still under development with PAVIR and will be posted here when complete. For now, please refer to this draft process: Individual SU-VA MOU Process

SU-VA faculty only have partial Stanford appointments, but a labor schedule is set up for 100% regardless of the appointment percentage.  For example, an 8/8ths appointed faculty is considered full time at the VA, but splits their overall time ~1/3^rd (33.33%) at Stanford and ~2/3rds (66.66%) at the VA.  Use a combination of the SU-VA template and the Salary over-the-cap templates in order ensure the correct % is entered in labor schedules.  Link to sections below.

SU-VA worksheet

For worksheet examples, start at 18:50 of presentation

Determining Salary Over-the-Cap

For the Excel worksheet demo, see 22:11 of presentation.

For template in labor schedule module, start at 25:33 of presentation

Excel Salary Cap Template

SU-VA TEMPLATE for LS Salary Cap Presentation (updated March 2022)

Guidelines for Sponsored Research Administration between PAVIR and Stanford University

Beginning in FY20, due to changes in Stanford’s VA Salary Parity Program, departments should no longer routinely see a “True-Up” payment (identifiable by the PAR earn code).  

However, if you do, please contact your RFCM. True-up should generally be charged to a non-sponsored PTA, not to LD.  The reason for that is that true-ups are for prior periods that may not coincide with the current labor schedule.

If the faculty has any salary charged to sponsored projects, then any True-Up payment should be charged to a non-sponsored PTA rather than distributed to LD.  The earn code for PAR will have an EID of when it was processed, NOT necessarily for the period it applies to. 

If the True-up payment is a credit it should still be made to a non-sponsored PTA, but a subsequent LDA will need to be processed to appropriately credit any sponsored projects for the over-charge of salary for the period of the True-Up payment.

They are appointed 100% at Stanford in order to receive benefits. For questions regarding SU-VA faculty pay during parental leave, please contact SoM Faculty Compensation.

During parental leave, faculty salary may not be charged to sponsored projects unless the sponsor policy (such as NIH Family Friendly Initiative) allows it.

All faculty who take sabbatical, including SU-VA faculty, must complete the Sabbatical Request form, including Attachment A which lists all their sponsored projects. Faculty with a joint SU/VA appointment are reminded to contact PAVIR staff if their leave will impact sponsored projects managed by PAVIR.  RMG is not involved with awards issued to PAVIR. Only awards issued to Stanford should be listed on Attachment A of the sabbatical form.

Generally, when on 100% sabbatical,  SU-VA faculty are paid their  100% appointment salary at Stanford and will not receive pay from the VA.   For questions regarding SU-VA faculty pay or the distribution of that pay during sabbatical, please refer to the approved Sabbatical Request form or contact SoM Faculty Compensation.

Note: Per FAQ#7 on DoResearch, faculty who take 100% sabbatical are not required to charge their grants for their research effort.  Effort still devoted to a sponsored project during sabbatical, but not charged, is not tracked as part of the Payroll Distribution system, so it is important to account for that effort using Attachment A.

Reference the resources below for more information on the various types of Personnel Agreements:

• Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA)
• Joint Personnel Agreement (JPA)
• Reverse Joint Personnel Agreement (rJPA)
• Personal Services Agreement (PSA)
  

Stanford Internal Resources

ORA: Intergovernmental & Joint Personnel Agreements

PAVIR Specific Resources

Personnel Agreement Types

Guidelines for JPA Eligibility

IPA Guidelines

Personnel Agreement Types

TIP: On JPAs for faculty salary, make sure the agreement has an attachment that reflects the award types and whether there is a sponsor salary cap that must be applied.  Some JPA agreements will have mixed award types – some with salary caps, some without. Get clarification from PAVIR if it isn’t clear.

Stanford faculty with a joint appointment at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System (VAPAHCS) should use the template below for preparing their NIH Other Support.

SU-VA Dually Appointed Faculty NIH OS Template (Last updated March 21, 2022).

This document includes supplemental instructions and additional language and formatting changes to better reflect their Other Support. As Dually-Appointed Faculty, Investigators will need to disclose all of their research support: (1) support managed through Stanford and (2) research support managed through Palo Alto Veterans Institute for Research (PAVIR) and VAPAHCS.

Investigators and departments will ultimately need to work together with their PAVIR team to ensure that the VA/PAVIR section is complete and accurate and with their Stanford research administrators and financial managers for the Stanford section of the Other Support.

PAVIR staff are responsible for managing the charges to PAVIR-managed awards for SU-VA faculty.

As an external user of Stanford Service Centers,  PAVIR will need to provide a PO to each Service Center for services specific to the faculty member.

Please see Section 2.4 (Use of Service Center Facilities by External Users) of the Service Center Manual)

BD-STEP at VA Palo Alto Health Care System

This program is managed by Stanford Faculty at the VA.

In 2020, there were 6 fellows (postdocs). If these fellows are paid a stipend or salary, they cannot be paid from federal funds.

VA guidelines that state the following on Page 13:

(c) Stipend Supplementation. Fellows shall not receive additional revenue from any source in compensation for their duties in this program. Questions about non-VA, pay, dual compensation, potential conflict of interest, can be definitively addressed by local Regional Counsel or General Counsel.

(e) Educational Detail: Fellows may be detailed to other educational institutions without loss of pay, but under no circumstances may the total time spent in non-VA institutions exceed one sixth of the total hours a fellow is in a pay and training status with VA. Should a program wish to have fellows conduct activities at non-VA sites, an appropriate affiliation agreement must be completed and prior written approval from Office of Academic Affiliations must be obtained