Announcement: Since 1990, Congress has legislatively mandated a limitation on direct salary for individuals under NIH awards. The mandate appears in the annual appropriation act that provides authority for NIH to incur obligations for a given Fiscal Year. At this time, NIH has not received an FY 2022 appropriation and is operating under a Continuing Resolution, the “Continuing Appropriations Act, 2022” (Public Law 117-70), that applies the terms and conditions of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021.
The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 restricts the amount of direct salary to Executive Level II of the Federal Executive pay scale. The Office of Personnel Management recently released new salary levels for the Executive Pay Scale. Effective January 2, 2022, the salary limitation for Executive Level II is $203,700. For active awards, including awards that have been issued in FY 2022 (continuation and new), that were restricted to the previous Executive Level II, if adequate funds are available in active awards, and if the salary cap increase is consistent with the institutional base salary, recipients may rebudget funds to accommodate the current Executive Level II salary level. For more information, please see NIH Notice NOT-OD-22-076 or visit the Department of Contracts and Grant’s Budget Development webpage.
Questions? If you have any questions about the increase to the NIH salary cap, please feel free to contact your DCG Officer.