RCUH, in partnership with the University of Hawai‘i, will be joining the State of Hawaii’s eSign program.  eSign will provide users with the option to route documents (such as contracts) via email for electronic signature.  Our hope is that this system will improve the efficiency of contract/document routing and signing.

eSign does not require the document signers to be registered.  However, all those who will be initiating the transmittal of RCUH documents for electronic signature must be registered in order to use the system.

We are now collecting the names, email addresses, and affiliation (i.e., UH or RCUH employee) of those interested in utilizing eSign.  You must have a hawaii.edu, rcuh.com, or hawaii.gov email address.  Please email [email protected] with your information by Friday, December 2, 2016.

Information regarding future use of the eSign program will be announced in the coming weeks.

Should you have any questions about the eSign program, please contact Erin Yoda at [email protected].

 

 

NOMINATE YOUR PROJECT STAFF FOR THE
2016 RCUH OUTSTANDING EMPLOYEE OF THE YEAR:

RECOGNITIONS

Two types of awards will be given:

1. Outstanding Researcher/Project Manager/Professional (exempt status position)
2. Outstanding Project Support Staff (non-exempt status position)

 The awards encourage, recognize, and reward RCUH employees who have made demonstrable, significant, and exemplary contributions to their project during the past fiscal year (July 2015 – June 2016).

AWARDS

• $1,000 to the first place awardee in each category
• $500 to the second place awardee in each category

All nominees will be recognized at the RCUH Annual Outstanding Employee Luncheon (date to be announced), where the awardees will be announced.

NOMINATIONS

Principal Investigators may nominate up to two employees per category from their respective program/project.  No more than one group or team nominations will be accepted from a program/project or college/school/institute.  Group or team nominations are limited to no more than five individuals.

DEADLINE

The deadline to submit nomination/s is November 7, 2016.  Email all nominations to [email protected].  Click here for the nomination form.

For more information, please refer to policy 3.450 Outstanding Employee of the Year Award or contact Gayle Hamasaki at [email protected].

We’ve launched . . . the redesigned RCUH website is live!  We hope you like the new look, feel, and functionality of the site.

Please be sure you are going to www.rcuh.com so you land on the home page.  Previous bookmarks may take you to a different page.

Some new items have been added so take a look at:

• Awards – Meet the outstanding project employees who were recognized this year and view the video clips on each of them. It’s fascinating to learn about the diverse  research activities everyone is involved in and the dedication of our employees.

• Online Training Videos – There are currently 2 video series for your viewing pleasure. We hope you find these to be helpful resources.  After watching the videos, please take a few minutes to complete the evaluation forms.  We value your feedback, which will help us improve upon future training.  We intend to establish more training programs, so your suggestions on future topics are welcome.

Our Policies and Procedures are still ‘under construction’ so do not yet have the new look/feel.  We hope to be able to move that to the new platform before the end of the year.

Please let us know how you like our new look.  If you have any questions, please let us know ([email protected]). Thank you!

 

Project Title	To provide legal services related to obtaining permanent residency status
Selected Consultant	Newton J. Chu, Esq. (Torkildson Katz Moore Hetherington & Harris AAL, ALC)
Contract Amount	$6,500.00 (federally-mandated employer fees only)
Date of Award	Effective September 7, 2016
Consultants Considered	Kahbo Dye-Chiew (Law Offices of Kahbo Dye-Chiew) Vaughn Cook (Torkildson Katz Moore Hetherington & Harris AAL, ALC)
Appointing Officer	Sylvia Yuen

RCUH strives to maintain a vendor file that is complete and accurate.  You may have been contacted recently to confirm an individual’s employment status, or to provide a missing employee ID number.  We appreciate all the prompt responses that we have received, which we used to update the records.  We have purged the remaining incomplete vendor records (primarily UH and RCUH employee vendor records without employee ID numbers) that have not been used since December 2015.  Going forward, if you are unable to locate a vendor record that you used prior to 2016, please create a new vendor record.

Please contact [email protected] if you have any questions or concerns.  Thank you.

 

We are excited to announce that RCUH will be launching a new website design shortly (early September).  While the functionality of the site remains the same, our website will have an updated look and feel, which we hope you will like. Please see the attached for a snapshot of the home page.

The application of the new design is a work in progress, as we are not able to apply the new design to every aspect of our site at the same time.  For instance, the Policies and Procedures section will retain the current look until we are able to move that application and apply the new design, hopefully within a couple of months.  The HR PeopleSoft screens are also being worked on.  Thank you for your patience as we continue our phased roll-out of the new site design.

For our Financial System users, there will also be a new sign-in screen and subsequent pages will be as shown on the attached.

If you have any questions, please contact Brenda Kanno at [email protected]. Thank you!

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New Web Page Image

New Financial System Sign-in

Effective September 1, 2016, RCUH will permit the use of scanned or faxed copies of most documents processed through RCUH’s Finance and Human Resources Departments.  Refer to Policy 2.013, Signature and Document Approval Process,¹ for limitations on this allowance.

Signatory Sequence Requirements

Effective September 1, 2016, all documents processed through RCUH must be signed by the vendor and/or project authority before RCUH will sign the document.  Refer to Policy 2.013, Signature and Document Approval Process. This applies to all documents, including but not limited to contracts and other vendor terms and conditions.  Having RCUH as the last signatory will ensure that all documents are properly executed.  RCUH understands that certain vendor terms and conditions may require that the vendor be the last signatory; in these situations, exceptions will be made on a case-by-case basis.

Signature Delegation

Effective September 1, 2016, all signing authority delegations must be kept on file by the respective project/fiscal office.  As a reminder, delegatees may sign “for” the delegator, but may not sign the delegator’s actual name.

Questions may be directed to Doug Tonokawa at (808) 988-8320 or [email protected].

___

¹ Note that the approval/signature authority charts that are currently included in Policy 2.201, Purchase Orders, will be moved to Section 3 of Policy 2.013, Signature and Document Approval Process.

Effective January 1, 2017, RCUH will be eliminating the discount on the indirect cost rate for advance funded intramural projects service ordered to RCUH. Currently, the indirect cost rate is 1.5% for projects with advance funds and 3.2% for projects without advance funds. All projects will henceforth be charged the 3.2% rate. RCUH regrets that it is unable to continue the discounted rate. Revenues are needed to implement long delayed and much-needed infrastructure upgrades to RCUH’s IT systems and to enable RCUH to provide enhanced project services. We appreciate your understanding.

In October, a reminder notice will be sent to the lead fiscal administrators along with a list of their affected accounts.

If you have any questions, please contact Doug Tonokawa at 988-8320 or [email protected].

Effective July 2016, RCUH will be sending monthly email notifications to Principal Investigators (PIs) and Fiscal Administrators (FAs) regarding intramural or revolving accounts that are nearing termination and/or have a deficit balance. We request that PIs work with their FA to take the necessary action regarding their account(s).

We hope that these notifications will be helpful to the PIs and FAs in managing their accounts. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the Project Administration section at [email protected].  Thank you.

The Agreement for Services (“Agreement”) template has been updated and revised effective July 12, 2016. There are now two versions of the Agreement: one for UH Projects, and one for Direct Projects.

The new templates are available as drop-down options in the Financial Portal’s Purchase Order document, and as Attachment 8a (UH Projects) and Attachment 8b (Direct Projects), in the Procurement & Disbursing Document Library.

The terms in Attachments 4 and 5 of the Agreement for Services are also a part of the Attachment 56 Request for Proposal Template. As such, Attachment 56 has also been revised and separated into Attachment 56a (UH Projects) and Attachment 56b (Direct Projects).

For those of you that are interested, the following table lists the significant changes that were made:

Section of the Agreement for Services	Change (the numbers reference the current versions)
Recitals, No. 3	A total “not to exceed” amount must now be included.
Attachment 1	Notes/instructions for the creator of the Agreement have been added.
Attachment 2	Notes/instructions for the creator of the Agreement have been added.
Attachment 3	Notes/instructions for the creator of the Agreement have been added. Additional standard language under the heading “Additional Requirements” has been added
Attachment 4	The Standards of Conduct Declaration has been revised to closely follow the standard State version
Attachment 5	No. 5 (Subcontracts and Assignments) – A reference to RCUH’s need to also approve subcontracts and assignments entered into by the contractor’s subcontractors/assignees, has been added. No. 7 (Modifications of Agreement) – A notation that modifications are not binding on RCUH unless RCUH has approved the modification in writing, has been added. No. 8 (Suspension of Agreement), No. 9 (Termination of Agreement for Default), and No. 10 (Termination of Agreement for Convenience) – the “Suspensions and Termination of Agreement” section of the old Agreement for Services has been separated into three sections: suspensions, terminations for default, and terminations for convenience. Additional language has also been added to Nos. 9 and 10. UH Agreement) No. 12 (Indemnification and Defense) – UH, the State of Hawaii, and the Project have been added as indemnitees. (Direct Project Agreement) No. 12 (Indemnification and Defense) – The State of Hawaii and the Project have been added as indemnitees. No. 15 (Ownership and Intellectual Property Rights) – This section has been rewritten to account for current requirements, and separated into three subcategories: (a) physical material, (b) patentable inventions, and (c) copyrights. (UH Agreement) No. 16 (Publicity) – In addition to the specific project, UH itself has been added as an entity that cannot be referred to without prior approval. No. 17 (Payment Procedures; Final Payment) – This section now specifically requires satisfactory performance as determined by RCUH and as specified in Attachments 1, 2, and 3. No. 23 (Counterparts) – This is a new section that has been added to allow each party to sign separate copies of the Agreement (which together shall constitute one agreement). (UH Agreement) No. 24 (Federal Provisions) – Separate references to Attachments 32a, 32b, 32c, and 32d are now included, to ensure that the correct Attachment 32 is agreed to by the contractor.

Due to the pervasiveness of the changes, a redline is not provided, as it would be difficult to review.

Questions may be directed to Erin H. Yoda at (808) 956-3969 or [email protected].