§ 1635.4 - What are LSC's timekeeping standards?

§ 1635.4 Administrative provisions.

Time records required by this section shall be available for examination by auditors and representatives of LSC, and by any other person or entity statutorily entitled to access to such records. LSC shall not disclose any time record except to a Federal, State or local law enforcement official or to an official of an appropriate bar association for the purpose of enabling such bar association official to conduct an investigation of an alleged violation of the rules of professional conduct.

What are LSC's timekeeping standards?

(a) Recipients must base allocations of salaries and wages on records that accurately reflect the work performed. These records must:

(1) Be supported by a system of internal control which provides reasonable assurance that the charges are accurate, allowable, and properly allocated;

(2) Be incorporated into the recipient's official records by no later than the end of the employee's pay period, generally every two weeks;

(3) Reflect the total activity for which the recipient compensates the employee;

(4) Encompass within the grantee's case management system both LSC-funded and all other direct cost activities compensated by the recipient, but may include the use of subsidiary records as defined in the recipient's written policies;

(5) Comply with the recipient's established accounting policies and practices;

(6) Support the distribution of the employee's salary or wages among specific activities or cost objectives if the employee works on more than one award or an indirect cost activity and a direct cost activity;

(7) Contain

(i) For cases, a unique client name or case number, the amount of time spent on the case, a description of the activities performed, and the dates on which a recipient employee worked on the case;

(ii) For matters or supporting activities, the amount of time and type of activity on which a recipient employee spent time and sufficient information to link the activity to a specific award or indirect cost amount. For example, if a recipient employee conducts a legal information session on filing a pro se divorce petition, the employee could record “pro se divorce group information session, 1.5 hours.”

(b) In accordance with Department of Labor regulations implementing the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) (29 CFR part 516), charges for the salaries and wages of nonexempt employees, in addition to the supporting documentation described in this section, must also be supported by records indicating the total number of hours worked each day.

(c) Salaries and wages of employees used in meeting cost sharing or matching requirements of Federal awards must be supported in the same manner as salaries and wages claimed for reimbursement from Federal awards.

(d) Recipients may establish the increments of time for which employees must record their activities (e.g., .25 hours, one-sixth of an hour). LSC recommends that recipients require employees to record their time in increments no greater than one quarter of an hour.

(e)

(1) Any recipient employee subject to this part who works part-time for the recipient and part-time for an organization that engages in restricted activities shall certify in writing that the employee has not engaged in restricted activity during any time for which the employee was compensated by the recipient or has not used recipient resources to carry out restricted activities.

(2) The certification requirement does not apply to a de minimis action related to a restricted activity. Actions consistent with the de minimis standard are those that meet all or most of the following criteria: Actions that are of little substance; require little time; are not initiated by the part-time employee; and, for the most part, are unavoidable. Employees shall make the required certification on a quarterly basis using a form determined by LSC.