What is Cost Policy?

Cost Policy at UC Merced

With many of the complexities in understanding and interpreting federal policies and guidelines surrounding today’s institutions of higher education, UC Merced's Office of Cost Standards and Policy was formed to provide a systematic and methodological structure to ensure compliance with these policies. Using cost accounting principles and integrating these within the mechanics of UC Merced’s daily operations, this office provides a sound level of expertise in managing the university’s growing research enterprise and operational objectives across the entire campus.

Areas the Office of Cost Standards and Policy Serve as a Primary Institutional Resource:

• Deriving and negotiating the University's Facilities and Administrative (F&A) rate
• Preparing the University's federal Disclosure Statement (DS-2)
• Ensuring compliance with the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) cost accounting standards with specific focus on the following standards:
  1. CAS 501 - Consistency in Estimating, Accumulating, and Reporting Costs
  2. CAS 502 - Consistency in Allocating Costs
  3. CAS 505 - Accounting for Unallowable Costs
  4. CAS 506 - Cost Accounting Period
• Ensuring that federal circulars such as the Uniform Guidance (2 CFR 200) are consistently applied when determining the allowability of costs on sponsored programs or identifying the distinctions between direct and indirect costs of sponsored programs
• Reviewing recharge/service center proposals and associated activity
• Identification of the functional classification of accounts (Uniform Accounting Structure)
• Management of the functional classification of space in the university's space management system, FacilitiesLink
• Building and maintaining cost accounting interfaces and structures within systems to continuously improve cost accounting standards processes and reporting
• Ad-hoc analysis and reporting using institutional financial data to identify things such as potential areas of risk or the correlations in the usage of expense coding (sub and object codes)

The Office of Cost Standards and Policy falls under the Controller and Assistant Vice Chancellor for Business and Financial Services.

Staff