Assessment Policy Changes To: "DC - All District Chiefs", "B - Branch Chiefs and Offices", "AO - All Administrative Officers" cc: "A - Division Chief and Staff" Subject: Assessment Policy Changes Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 16:32:43 -0400 From: "Alice A Sabatini, Administrative Officer, Reston, VA" The Operations Council agreed today to change the policy on interdivision assessment. We won't be implementing the 80/20 policy this year or ever. Any SVs that have already been done using the 80/20 policy this year will not be reversed, however, to avoid the additional work involved. The new policy will be effective at the start of FY 1998 with some pilot efforts for large appropriated fund transfers in FY 1997. The new policy is as follows (it will probably be changed editorially, but not in substance): The division accomplishing the interdivision work will add their normal assessment to the direct costs of the project. Overhead will include bureau, division and cost center level indirect costs. Special assessment rates at the cost center level will be used when applicable. The transferring division will not, except as noted below, apply any assessment to work accomplished by interdivision transfer. It has been determined that it is not cost effective for the transferring division to separately account for small interdivision transfers (which would be required in order to apply no assessment to them). Therefore, interdivision transfers of less than $10,000 and those included in the list of exceptions below, will be charged the normal assessment by both the transferring and receiving divisions. (List of exceptions remains the same as the previous policy) Where feasible, appropriation and/or reimbursable authority should be transferred to the division performing the work. When appropriation and reimbursable authority is transferred, interdivision transfers are unnecessary and double assessment is not an issue. The Bureau assessment will continue to be distributed to the transferring division, based on this retained appropriation creating an incentive to transfer the authority. Appropriation Transfer: The Budget Office will develop a process, by March 1, 1997, for use starting FY 1998, for annually allotting appropriation to divisions based on where the work will be accomplished. These transfer will be one-year in duration and will not change the data in the budget book. The transferred authority will retain the program element identity and control by the program manager of the transferring division. Appropriation authority should be allotted to the division accomplishing the work whenever feasible. Where it is not feasible to transfer authority, such as cases where the work accomplished is funded by assessment, or where multiple funding sources support the transfer, the transfer will continue to be made by standard voucher (SV). No assessment will be applied by the transferring organization in these cases. The receiving organization, before applying assessment, will insure that the transferring organization is not assessing the item. Reimbursable Transfer: Reimbursable authority should be transferred from the division signing the agreement to the division accomplishing the work whenever it is feasible to do so. Performance of billing, project deliverables and other responsibilities required by the reimbursable agreement should be clearly identified by the divisions involved. In some cases, there is work at the transferring cost center level associated with billing, negotiation and execution of the agreement, coordinating the interdivision work efforts, and project development that will not be funded under this policy. In these cases, it is permissible for the cost centers involved (receiving and transferring) to negotiate an equitable sharing arrangement for the cost center assessment levied by the receiving cost center.