Northwest Justice Project
Allocations Process
Monthly Allocations at the Source
December 31, 2016
Personnel Expenses:
Salary and Benefit Expenses are directly coded to the appropriate office, funding pool or funding source for each individual employee based upon the employee office location, job description and role. Employees are typically set-up by office, funding pool or funding source and related costs are directly coded at the point of coding payroll. ie: a CLEAR attorney is typically assigned as 100% CLEAR.
Advocates may occasionally be allocated to more than one funding source and their allocation is ultimately supported (or) proved based on the percentage of eligible time that they devote to each funding pool or funding source.
NJP administrative employee costs are initially coded to the “Administration” funding pool in the "Basic" funding section. Administrative employees include the Executive Management Team, Executive Support Staff, Statewide Advocacy Coordinators, Coordinator Support Staff, Technology and Accounting Personnel:
César Torres, Executive Director
Deborah Perluss, Director of Advocacy
Steve Pelletier, Director of Finance
Sue Encherman, Director of Operations
Joan Kleinberg, Director of Strategic Initiatives
Karen Holland, Director of Human Resources
Steve Fredrickson, Statewide Coordinator (Retired 2016)
Scott Crain, Statewide Coordinator (Effective 2016)
Leslie Savina, Statewide Coordinator
Meagan MacKenzie, Statewide Coordinator
Bridgette Murphy, Coordinators Legal Assistant
James Logan, Technology Support
Jerald Roco, Technology Support
Jimmy Nguyen, Technology Support
Jane Tapp, Assistant Controller
Judie Sherr, Accounts Payable Clerk
Roberta Nichols, Payroll Clerk
Non – Personnel:
Non-Personnel Expenses are directly coded to the appropriate office, funding pool or funding source at invoice entry. Invoices for ongoing services, rent or purchases that are common across an office or the organization are typically allocated at the payment using an appropriate allocation basis. ie: employee FTE percentages, or Attorney/Paralegal FTE percentages as the allocation basis, where appropriate.
When it is not clear where to code an expense, at the time of invoice entry and payment, the payment is coded to “allocation” accounts. The assistant controller, at the month-end closing, reviews these accounts to determine the appropriate allocation and coding of the expenditure and then reclassifies accordingly.
Northwest Justice Project
Allocations Process
Year-End Allocations
December 31, 2016
Year – End Adjustments and Allocations:
Year-End allocations are made as follows:
a. Depreciation: During the year (interim) depreciation expense is estimated and recorded. Depreciation is reviewed, reconciled and recalculated at year-end based upon the year’s additions, deletions and a fixed asset review and analysis. The Assistant Controller updates the fixed asset schedule using “Depreciation Solution” software to determine the final depreciation. NJP uses an annually updated version of “Depreciation Solution” software to track depreciable assets based upon the capitalization policy. Depreciation at year end is then adjusted to the actual and charged to the appropriate funding sources. The funding sources are charged based upon specific assets assigned to the funding source or those allocated to the source.
b. Administrative Allocations: Administrative costs, including management, statewide advocacy coordinators, technology, and accounting personnel along with their share of respective non-personnel costs are coded and accumulated in administration accounts during the year. Administrative costs are included as part of the pool of basic costs used for interim allocations to OCLA and various other hourly rate contracts. Allocations are supported based upon contract eligible case time records. At year-end administrative costs are allocated to relevant funding pools based upon activities during the year.
c. Certain grants and work-study arrangements are charged directly for their costs (as they are incurred) or costs are allocated to them in accordance with the contract agreements. While these contracts may require non-federal matching amounts or not they also are generally eligible for some level of state and federal contribution. Any excess costs incurred for special grants and projects are allocated to either eligible LSC Basic funding, State (OCLA) funding, LFW (IOLTA) funding or other as appropriate and supported by eligible activities and time records.
d. AAA Seniors contracts are allocated a share of NJP basic costs up to the contracted amounts based upon case and matter time. Required matching and any excess costs are charged to State (OCLA) funding or other eligible funding as supported by NJP case and matter time records.
e. State (OCLA) Contract Allocations: “Basic Costs” are allocated and charged to the State contract monthly. They are allocated using an eligible percentage calculation based upon State eligible case time analysis corroborated by NJP case management system time records. Other cost pools may also be allocated to OCLA as supported by OCLA activities. Certain OCLA specific costs and OCLA approved sub-contracts such as Legal Foundation of Washington, 211 King County Intake, NOHLA and PSTI (Case Management System) are directly coded to State (OCLA) funding, as incurred.
f. PAI Allocations: This is an allocation for eligible PAI activities to meet the 12.5 % LSC PAI requirement of LSC ~1614. NJP’s PAI plan includes costs of contract attorney coordination, contract attorney direct payments, volunteer attorney coordination and CLEAR referral activities. NJP was in discussions with LSC from 2007-2014 regarding PAI plan CLEAR referral allocations. From 2007-2014 NJP received formal LSC waivers of a portion of the PAI requirement (representing the CLEAR portion of our PAI plan). Final LSC judgments and clarifications were published in 2015 that support the allocation of CLEAR costs to PAI. PAI Plans are submitted to LSC annually and approved by the NJP Board. PAI allocations are supported by the case management system and a worksheet is prepared with analysis of the PAI eligible CLEAR cases and time against total CLEAR cases and time.
g. IOLTA Allocations: Certain case and matter activities (time and costs for work on cases and activities allowed by LSC that specifically cannot be funded with LSC funds) are collected and valued. An appropriate allocation is booked against unrestricted IOLTA or other appropriate funding. See NJP program policy #22. Other IOLTA specific advocate time and identified expenditures are directly funded by and charged to IOLTA throughout the year, as well.
h. Attorney Fees and Derivative Income: NJP follows the LSC accounting guide with respect to allocations of income from attorney fees and (or) other derivative income. Attorney fees are allocated to LSC based upon the proportion that LSC funds were expended to support representation from which attorney fees were derived. Derivative income (interest income, rent income, recovery of direct payments to attorneys, proceeds from the sale of assets, or other income deemed attributable to a Corporation grant) is also allocated to LSC based upon an analysis of how much was attributable to LSC grants.
Northwest Justice Project
Non-LSC Funded Allocations to IOLTA
December 31, 2016
Under certain circumstances NJP spends time on cases or matters for activities with circumstances specifically allowed by LSC, but that are not to be funded with LSC funds. When this type of activity occurs, historically less than a fraction of 1% of our total activities, a request and approval “Request to Use Non-LSC Funds” is prepared and approved by the “Director of Advocacy” Deborah Perluss or the Executive Director. A copy of this approval is routed to accounting.
The Legal Server Case Management System collected time on these cases and matters is recorded and tracked as IOLTA. At the end of the year the time records are analyzed and time reports generated. This Non-LSC IOLTA time is then compared to total case time to yield an allocation percentage that is used to allocate related costs to IOLTA or other appropriate funding.