Faculty's Threshold Exceeded

Under the APM‑025 Conflict of Commitment and Outside Activities policy, the allowed time threshold for outside professional activities (Category I + II) depends on whether the faculty appointment is academic-year or fiscal-year.

Academic-Year Faculty - Summer Period

• There is no time limit on outside activities during the summer unless the faculty member receives UC summer compensation.
• If the faculty member does receive UC summer compensation, the allowable outside activity time is limited to 1 day per week during the compensated period.

Lower Time Thresholds

Some campuses or departments may establish lower time thresholds than the maximum allowed under APM-025. When this occurs, faculty who exceed their local threshold may be required to submit an Exceed Threshold form in UC OATS.

Under the APM-671 Conflict of Commitment and Outside Activities policy, faculty participating in the Health Sciences Compensation Plan (HSCP) must report both the time spent and earnings received from outside professional activities.

Earnings Threshold

Faculty may retain outside earnings up to: $40,000 OR 40% of the fiscal year base salary scale (Scale 0), whichever is greater.

• When the earnings threshold is exceeded, the faculty member must submit an Exceed Threshold form for the activity that caused the threshold to be exceeded.
  • If approved, the exceed threshold form increases the allowable threshold only for that specific activity.
  • If multiple activities exceed the threshold, a separate Exceed Threshold form must be submitted for each activity.
• Income above the earnings threshold must be deposited into the Health Sciences Compensation Plan (HSCP) unless an approved exception is granted.
  • After an Exceed Threshold form is approved, faculty may be able to submit a Request to Retain Earnings form to request permission to retain earnings above the threshold. Note: This option has been disabled by some campuses.

When a Health Sciences faculty member exceeds their time and/or earnings threshold, they must submit an Exceed Threshold form.

This form requires the faculty member to enter the total number of hours and total earnings they expect for the activity. The values entered must be greater than or equal to the hours and earnings already reported for that activity in UC OATS.

Faculty are encouraged to estimate high when completing this form to reduce the need for additional Exceed Threshold requests for the same activity.

Common reasons why you get multiple Exceed Threshold requests from the same faculty within a fiscal year:

Reviewers may receive multiple Exceed Threshold requests from the same faculty member within a fiscal year for several reasons:

• The faculty member exceeds the approved threshold for an activity. If their effort or earnings grow beyond what was originally approved, they must submit a new request.
• Once a faculty member exceeds their overall time or earnings threshold, entering additional effort or earnings for another activity will trigger another Exceed Threshold form. As a result, faculty may need to submit separate requests for each activity they continue to report.

Exceed Time Threshold

When a Health Sciences faculty member exceeds their time threshold, their earnings threshold adjusts to match their currently reported earnings.

As a result, any additional effort reported after that point will require an Exceed Threshold form.

Example

In this example, the faculty member has:

• Time threshold: 168 hours
• Earnings threshold: $40,000

The faculty member reports:

• 200 hours
• $2,400 in earnings

Because the reported time exceeds the 168-hour threshold, the faculty member exceeds their time limit. The system then adjusts the earnings threshold to match the reported earnings ($2,400).

Any additional time or earnings reported after this point will require an Exceed Threshold form.