The core operating grant for CENPA, about $3M per year, comes from the DOE Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics. There are also grants for the Gravity program from NSF, for ADMX from DOE’s Office of High Energy Physics, and other sources.
The spending authority goes into a Parent Budget called CP Operations (the term is historical from when CENPA was an accelerator lab: “Charged-particle operations”). Under this budget are about 20 sub-budgets for our specific programs and projects. Each budget is either a capital budget NOT subject to Facilities and Administration (F&A) charge of 54.5% or an operating budget that IS subject to the indirect charge. The budget numbers are 6-digit numbers like 62-7182 that change every year. There is also a special budget, 14-9472, to run the Cost Center. It does not change. Our fiscal year begins December 1 and ends November 30.
There are many other budget numbers for the other grants (NSF, ADMX,…) and also budgets for startup, teaching, building renovations, etc.
CENPA has many activities and projects, and it is necessary to keep track of them all separately so that DOE and we can decide on the cost and benefit of each, and can track the spending. There are alphanumeric code names used for this – see the list below. The code names are divided into three categories:
Lxx are spending categories generally for lab maintenance and operation, e.g. accelerator, or safety. These codes all lead to 14-9472.
Rxx are categories different kinds of research, e.g. weak interactions, or muon research. The Research codes all lead to sub-budgets that are charged indirect.
Pxx are capital equipment categories for building major items of equipment that will carry a UW tag number, e.g. KATRIN, or Muon TPC. The Project codes all lead to sub-budgets that have no indirect.
When you purchase something, in general you need only remember the 3-character code. It is not necessary to remember the budget number. If you do need the budget number, you can consult the handout posted here.
For project numbers and budgets please see
https://www.npl.washington.edu/cenpa/budget/documents
(UW authentication required)