Director plans to ensure high
performance
by Mary
Helen YarboroughPublic Relations
After eight years as assistant director, Velma Stamp has taken the helm of the department that manages approximately $180 million of sponsored research expenditures, of which the federal government is the major sponsor. She calls principal investigators (PI) her “customers,” and has seen a decline in turnover rate among her staff that has resulted in continuity of high performance. Stamp’s job is to make sure grant money is appropriately spent and accounted for.
Velma Stamp“We have to assure the funds are being expended in the manner the government or other sponsors have mandated,” said Stamp, adding that she wants to avoid red flags that could potentially jeopardize funding. “Auditors are just as strict with $5,000 as they are with $5 million. They have zero tolerance for mismanagement of these funds.”
Each year, MUSC is required by federal regulations to have an A-133 audit conducted of its grants and contracts. The firm contracted to conduct this audit, KPMG, has begun dispatching its auditors to campus for the annual A-133 audit, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year. Its focus, as is Stamp’s, is on federal grants and contracts.
Currently her department is overseeing 2,000 active projects. “We pick up the project from the time it is awarded, and we manage it until it’s completed and closed out,” Stamp explained.
She has a staff of 19 who work diligently to ensure that the university remains in compliance with the many regulations imposed by the government. One key component in accomplishing this is to provide continuous educational sessions.
Her department currently offers several types of educational sessions for PIs and departmental administrators that include four teleconferences a year through the National Council of University Research Administrators. Stamp said that individual department training is performed by request, along with regular research roundtable discussions conducted jointly with the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs.
“Our goal is to build excellent working relationships and provide support to the principal investigators and the departmental administrators to assure they have what they need to accomplish their research,” Stamp said.
Stamp said that not only do staff members patiently work with PIs when they call, “We make rounds on campus and go see them. We learn what they need and we respond. We continually review our processes and make necessary adjustments so that the information we are providing is useful.”
Stamp credits the enhanced working relationships with PIs and departmental administrators to having a very conscientious staff and to reduced turnover which has translated to a more experienced and knowledgeable staff. “I am blessed with a fantastic staff and I want to make sure they have the appropriate tools to perform their jobs. I also want them to enjoy coming to work. With the implementation of the MUSC Excellence initiative that our division embarked upon in the last year, these same goals are stressed and supported by the university.”
Stamp follows longtime colleague David Welch, who retired in the spring after having directed the program for 10 years. Welch and Stamp worked on opposite sides of the contract table when he was in charge of the grants department at Georgia Tech (GT), and she was the senior auditor for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) overseeing federal grants and contracts at GT.
Stamp, who earned her accounting degree from South Carolina State University, was recruited in 1997 from her DoD post in Atlanta to MUSC.
As a federal auditor, she monitored how GT was managing its DoD federal grants. As Grants and Contracts director at MUSC, she understands what federal auditors are looking for and knows firsthand how to keep awards programs running smoothly and equitably. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is the primary federal agency that she now deals with, though a portion of MUSC’s grants also come from other federal agencies.
Stamp reports to Patrick J. Wamsley, chief financial officer.
“Velma’s experience with the Defense Contract Audit Agency has given MUSC an edge in developing and negotiating Indirect Cost Recovery (Finance & Administration) and Fringe Benefit rates,” Wamsley said. “She was instrumental in the last rate negotiations in which MUSC was able to successfully increase F&A rate from 43 to 46 points.
“Velma is already hard at work developing a new F&A rate proposal and preparing for tough negotiations. She has also shown a commitment toward streamlining operations and providing excellent customer service,” Wamsley said.
Friday, June 8, 2007
Catalyst Online is published weekly,
updated
as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public
Relations
for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of
South
Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at
792-4107
or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to
Catalyst
Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to
catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Island
Publications at 849-1778, ext. 201.