IPA Guidelines
IPAs are agreements pursuant to the Intergovernmental Personnel Act which provides a mechanism for the Federal Government to share staff across institutional boundaries. Here at VAPAHCS, IPAs are usually implemented to allocate PAVIR or Stanford employees to VA funded projects, but it is possible to use IPAs for VA employees working on PAVIR or Stanford projects.
The IPA mechanism may not be used under the following circumstances:
- For an employee who has been a PAVIR employee for less than 90 days
- For an employee serving in administrative or clinical functions
- For a temporary employee, including postdocs and others in training positions (and in the case of a VA employee, those with a time limited appointment)
- For more than two years without amendment, or for a total of four years without a break in service of one year
- In the case of a VA employee, for a lifetime total of more than six years
Other rules established by the federal Office of Personnel Management or by VA, may apply.
PAVIR charges a fee for processing and maintaining IPAs to offset associated Human Resources and other administrative costs. The fee is 10% of the salary and benefit cost of the IPA, not to exceed a predetermined maximum per fiscal year and must be funded through unrestricted sources.
Effective October 1, 2014, PAVIR is implementing the following changes:
- The IPA administrative fee is reduced to a maximum of $3,000 per employee in a fiscal year. Principal Investigators must have administrative or other unrestricted funds available to cover these costs.
- Per employee, all new IPAs will be billed a minimum $500 administrative fee, which will be billed the 1st month following IPA initiation. The initial $500 fee will offset the standard 10% fee of the total direct IPA cost. Only when the cumulative 10% fee exceeds the initial $500 fee will the 10% administrative fee be applied, and then only until the $3,000/fiscal year cap is reached.
- IPA questionnaires must be completed a minimum of two (2) weeks prior to the effective date to assure seamless implementation at the desired IPA start date. IPA questionnaires can be requested from PAVIR Contracts & Grants.
- All VA compliance requirements must be met prior to IPA start date and activation. This includes that the WOC appointment must cover the entire IPA appointment period. If the WOC is scheduled to expire prior to the IPA appointment period, either the IPA or the WOC appointment must be adjusted.
- For PAVIR employees covered under an IPA, the IPA start date must coincide with the start of a PAVIR pay period, i.e., the 1st or 16th of the month.