Section A.4 (page 3) of the policy states, "the total
cost of services indicated on the [consultant] form must include an
estimate of out of pocket expenses, if any, to be paid to the individual
in connection with the services rendered. These expenses have been raised
as to whether this treatments applies to miscellaneous payments made
to individuals for honoraria.
The following criteria should be applied when making honoraria
payments, as well as reimbursements for traveling expenses to visiting
lectures.
As outlined in Section B.3 (page 7) of the policy, "an
honorarium is defined as a payment for personal services on which
custom or propriety forbids a price to be set. Typically, honoraria
are paid to guest lecturers or experts for brief appearances at the
University."
If you are making an honorarium payment to a guest lecturer
or expert for a brief visit, you may treat the individual's honorarium
fee separately form his/her expense reimbursement; you do not have
to combine both of these components into the honorarium fee. If you
separate the honorarium from the travel reimbursement, the honorarium
payment must be made in accordance with section B.3 and B.5 of the
policy and the travel reimbursement must be in accordance with the
University's travel policy.
If you or the recipient of the honorarium prefer not
to separately account for and report (on a TABER) traveling expenses,
you may include this amount or an estimate thereof, in the honorarium
fee and process the single payment in accordance with section B.5
of the policy.
If honoraria payments are for large sums or for long
periods of time, you should reassess whether the payment is truly
an honorarium, or whether you are actually contracting a consultant
to perform services. Section B.3 of the policy provides guidance in
this regard and states that, "service arrangements providing
for more extensive involvement on the part of the expert such as program
review requiring the preparation of written evaluation, are to be
treated as consulting arrangements." You will need to use judgment
in these cases and if a consulting arrangement prevails, you will
need to comply with Section A of the policy.
As always, honoria payments made to employees, if and
when appropriate, must be processed through the University's payroll
system.
Payments for honoraria paid to nonresident aliens must
continue to be prepared in accordance with Section C of the policy
