Office of the Comptroller
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Financial Compliance

FY22 Facilities and Administrative Rate Base Proposal - Base Year Activities

Fiscal Year 2022 is considered the base year for developing the University's facilities and administrative (F&A) rate proposal. This proposal is also commonly referred to as the indirect cost proposal.  This proposal is submitted to the Division of Cost Allocation (DCA) of the Department of Health and Human Services and they serve as Drexel University's cognizant agency. The cognizant agency reviews the proposal submission and negotiates the rates with Drexel on behalf of the federal government. The rates that are established are then utilized as the indirect cost rate on all federally sponsored agreements.

Drexel's last F&A base year was fiscal year 2017. The proposal was filed in January 2018 and finalized in November 2019. At that time, we negotiated the F&A rates through June 30, 2023.  However, these rates are then in effect in a provisional state until the next indirect cost rate is negotiated. Therefore, we are now preparing to attempt to have in place for FY'24 new facilities and administrative rates based on the FY'22 proposal. However, if the negotiation is not finalized by July 1, 2023, we will continue to use our existing rates for FY'23 until the rate is finalized.

Maximus has been engaged to act as the project manager and rate negotiator. The F&A rate proposal is a highly specialized task that requires a high level of expertise and experience to navigate. Maximus has assisted Drexel with their proposals for over 20 years. Maximus has also partnered with Asset Services to handle the physical equipment inventory that is required by the federal government for the F&A base year.

The Facilities and Administrative Rate proposal base year activities for FY'22 are comprised of the following major components:

  1. Full Physical Equipment Inventory
  2. Research Space Inventory using WebSpace Software
  3. Financial Data compilation using Maximus' CRIS Software to develop the rates and supporting schedules for the proposals
  4. Update the Cost Accounting Standards Board Disclosure Statement