Dear Colleagues,

We discussed at the Birck faculty meeting in March that our process for reviewing recharge rates has undergone a significant overhaul. This will allow us to be more responsive to changes in use, stay cost competitive with other institutions, and reduce the administrative time for rate adjustments. Moving forward, we plan to adjust recharge rates every 12 – 18 months, with the result being a more fair distribution of costs consistent with the usage.

New rates will go into effect for all Birck recharges on July 1^st, 2020. A comparison of these new rates with our current rates is attached, as well as a more detailed explanation of changes and the new lab access charging model (also described at the Birck Faculty meeting in March).

Here is a brief overview:

A simplified lab access charging model which incentivizes usage of multiple lab “types”

Change of the lab access swipe cap to 15 days per month for internal users

Simplification of services offered, combining multiple related tools into services with like users, techniques, and/or equipment

A plan to consistently group the tools making up these services into “categories” in iLab. This doesn’t affect the monthly billing as you will still see the specific tools that have been used.

More fair distribution of subsidy

The Birck Laboratory Access Fee is subsidized 50% for internal users
Shared use, staff supported services are subsidized 18%. This level will be adjusted as needed in subsequent years

Simplification of the Scifres cap

A $12,000 hard cap for equipment services on the Scifres recharge per user, per account, per fiscal year
Users will be “uncapped” after being subsidized a total of $12,000 (i.e. general funds subsidy totaling 100% of the cap level) across all of their associated accounts per fiscal year

Overall ~10% increase in costs which is largely an inflation increase from last full rate review (2013)
A number of service specific changes:

Most recharge equipment in bio labs will be included in the BioLabs access fee rather than as separate charges
Simplifying tool charged units, with all tools except metallization tools moving to an hourly rate
Optical microscopes being included on the “General Metrology” service

Please let me, Sunil or Zhihong know if you have any questions or comments.

Best regards,

Ali