Allowable Cost
| News releases | Allowable with approval. |
| Overtime | Allowable, with institutional approval |
| Patient costs | Generally allowable. |
| Plant security costs | Indirect Cost |
| Periodicals | Unallowable unless approved by the funding agency or essential to the daily conduct of the project and not readily available from other sources (such as the library). |
| Postage: Routine postage | Unallowable except where a project requires specifically identifiable large mailings or the like. |
| Postage: Special mailing or delivery costs | Allowable when necessary for the success or completion of project. |
| Pre-award Costs | Unallowable, except for grants under Federal Demonstration Project grants and cooperative agreements from certain federal agencies with institutional approval. |
| Promotional items and memorabilia, including models, gifts and souvenirs | Unallowable unless specifically requested and approved in proposal. |
| Proposal costs | Unallowable as a direct expense |
| Publication costs | Unallowable unless approved by the funding agency or essential to the daily conduct of the project and not readily available from other sources (such as the library). |
| Registration fees | Generally allowable. |
| Rearrangement costs, refreshments | Not allowable unless specifically approved by contracting officer. |
| Recruiting costs | Generally allowable. |
| Relocation costs | Generally allowable. |
| Rental/lease of facilities or Equipment | Generally allowable. |
| Renovation costs | Allowable if approved by agency |
| Repairs | Generally allowable. |
| Royalty costs | Generally allowable. |
| Salaries and wages: Faculty/Technical | Costs of personnel are allowable on research agreements to the extent supported by actual effort performed on the project and approved in the award budget. An individual's base salary must be used to compute the cost charged to a sponsored agreement. |
| Salaries and wages: Administrative and Clerical | Generally recovered through indirect costs; therefore, they are usually unallowable as direct costs on federal agreements. Exceptions include: projects that involve extensive data accumulation, require making travel and meeting arrangements for large numbers of participants, projects where the principle focus is the preparation and production of manuals, books, etc, projects that are geographically inaccessible to normal department administrative services, such as field offices; projects requiring significant amounts of project-specific database management. |
| Scholarships and student aid | Allowable costs for training grants only. |
| Service charges | Generally allowable. |
| Specialized service center costs | Generally allowable. |
| Student activity costs | Unallowable |
| Subject costs | Generally allowable. |
| Supplies: Project Supplies | Allowable if identified as being exclusively for the support of a sponsored agreement. Chemicals, laboratory supplies, pens, pencils, folders, notebooks and the like. |
| Supplies: Office Supplies | Unallowable if items commonly found in any office such as wall clocks, calendars, waste cans, letterhead, staples, etc. that would likely be used for other purposes except in specific circumstances. |
| Taxes | Generally allowable. |
| Telephone: Local | Generally unallowable as direct cost. |
| Telephone: Long Distance | Allowable when specifically identified with an individual project. |
| Transportation costs | Generally allowable. |
| Travel costs | Allowable within the approved budget limits and university policy. Foreign travel requires program approval. |
| Examples of unallowable Costs | Coffee Mugs for Administrative Staff; Bus Chartered for Administrative Staff; Reunion for Former Participants; Selling and Marketing; T shirts; Engraved key chains; Texas State banners (unless specifically requested and approved in proposal) |
Unallowable Costs:
Unallowable costs are costs that cannot be paid by a sponsored program. Such costs may be expressly prohibited by Uniform Guidance 2CFR 200. Charging an unallowable expense to a sponsored award is prohibited, i.e., at no time should unallowable costs be charged to the sponsored project.
However, if an error does occur and unallowable cost is identified, the following process should be followed:
- Division of Research will notify the PI/Department of the unallowable cost that should be moved to a department specific account. Normally these unallowable costs are moved to the PI’s/Dept/College Designated Returned Indirect Cost Account.
- If PI/Department is non-responsive to the request, the Division of Research has the authority to move unallowable costs to the PI/Department/College Designated Returned Indirect Cost Account.
Special Contract Provisions for Federal Awards:
The University complies with the federal procurement standards outlined in 2 CFR 200.320 to 200.325, particularly for awards by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). It establishes requirements for procurement activities funded by federal grants and cooperative agreements, especially for purchase/contracts exceeding $250,000 that may require prior written approval from the DOJ or other federal awarding agencies.
The Office of Sponsored Programs shall coordinate with the appropriate partnering office to ensure proper documentation, justification, and approval processes are followed.