On Thursday, January 14, 2021, we encountered a system error which affected our end of day business processing and consequently checks could not be printed.  We are working to resolve the issue and we will post an updated announcement when the Financial Portal is back in operation.  At this time, purchasing and payment transactions cannot be approved until the issue is resolved.

We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience.

Effective January 1, 2021, the following updates were made:

• UH WH-1 Form – The University of Hawaii Statement of Citizenship and Federal Tax Status form has been updated for 2021. The new form may be found in the RCUH Procurement and Disbursing Document Library. Previous versions of the UH WH-1 Form will no longer be valid.
• Standard mileage rates – The Internal Revenue Service has updated the standard mileage rates used to calculate the deductible costs of operating an automobile (includes cars, vans, pickups, and panel trucks) for business or charitable purposes. The 2021 rates are as follows:
  

  $0.56	per mile driven for business purposes, decreased from $0.575 in 2020
  $0.14	per mile driven in service of charitable organizations (rate for volunteers)

  The standard mileage rate for business miles is based on an annual study of the fixed and variable costs of operating an automobile. The charitable mileage rate is set by statute. See IR-2020-279, December 22, 2020.

• Attachment 12, Current RCUH Travel Rates, has been updated with the mileage rate changes. UH employees may refer to www.hawaii.edu/etravel/rates.html.

The payment approval deadline on Thursday, December 24 and Thursday, December 31 is 12:00 noon. Online payment transactions approved by fiscal administrators by 12:00 noon on December 24 and 31 will be included in the daily check print and ePayment file.

The last check run for the calendar year will be on Thursday, December 31, 2020. Month-end processing will commence at 12:00 noon on December 31, 2020. During this period, online purchasing, payment, and travel transactions can be initiated, but fiscal administrators will NOT have the ability to approve transactions. Transactions approved after 12:00 noon on December 31 will NOT be included in the project reports for the month of December.

If you have any questions, please contact Maile Brooks at 988-8340 or [email protected].

The Financial Portal User Profile has been updated with the following new features:
• Users with multiple user types will be combined into one user account so that only one login is required.
• Users with multiple user types will have the ability to switch to a different user type within the Financial Portal.
• Users will have the ability to delegate account access to a specific project account.

Please refer to the attached release notes for further details.

If you have any questions, please contact Maile Brooks at [email protected], (808) 988-8340 or Ricky Fujioka at [email protected], (808) 988-8346.

Effective October 23, 2020, RCUH’s micro-purchase threshold (MPT) for purchases made using federal contract funds is increasing from $3,500 to $10,000. The MPT for federal contract funds is being raised to meet the $10,000 MPT for all other funds (e.g., federal grant and cooperative agreement funds, non-federal funds), because the $10,000 threshold was recently adopted by the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR). The $10,000 MPT amount now applies to all types of funds.

Revisions to the MPT have been made in the following policies/documents:
• Policy 2.103 Request for Quotation (Sections I.A.; I.B.)
• Policy 2.106 Sole Source Purchase (Introduction; Section I.D.1.)
• Policy 2.107 Exempt Purchase (Introduction)
• Policy 2.110 Cost or Price Reasonableness (Sections II.A.; II.B.1.)
• Policy 2.201 Purchase Orders (Sections II.D.)
• Attachment 28 Procurement Checklist

Also effective October 23, 2020, the simplified acquisition threshold (SAT) for requirements in Policy 2.111, is being increased from $150,000 to $250,000 for federal contract funds, as the $250,000 amount has also been adopted by the FAR. The policy is now entitled, “2.111 Purchases Over $250,000 (Federal Funds)”. The $250,000 SAT amount now applies to all types of federal funds.

Questions may be directed to Erin Yoda, RCUH Procurement and Disbursing Manager, at [email protected].

In cooperation with the State of Hawai‘i Office of Enterprise Technology Services, we are pleased to announce two (2) added features. Effective September 22, 2020:

• Multiple files uploaded (before sending) will be automatically merged into a single document (Important: Load files in the sequence you wish them to appear in the final)

• Audit Report/History will be automatically attached as the last page when the PDF document is fully signed and filed (applicable to users with eSign accounts)

We hope these added features will improve efficiencies in your workflow.

Should you have any questions, please contact RCUH Corporate Services at [email protected].

The RCUH Financial Portal is currently down due to a system error. We are working to resolve the issue, and we will post a message when the Financial Portal is back in operation. Until the problem is resolved, the Financial Portal cannot be accessed. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience. Thank you.

The RCUH Financial Portal will be down for system maintenance from Thursday, August 20, 2020, 9:00 p.m. to Friday, August 21, 2020, 4:00 a.m.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your understanding.

The 2020 RCUH Outstanding Employees of the Year Awards encourage, recognize, and reward RCUH employees who have made demonstrable, significant, and exemplary contributions to their project during the past fiscal year (July 2019–June 2020) or years.

RECOGNITIONS

Three award categories are available:

1. Researcher/Project Manager/Professional (exempt status position)
2. Project Support Staff (non-exempt status position)
3. Team (2–5 staff in exempt and/or non-exempt Regular-status positions) 

AWARDS

• $1,000 to the first place awardee in each category
• $500 to the second place awardee in each category
• Team awards for first and second place will be shared equally among team members

All nominees and awardees will be announced in the fall. (We have suspended the nominee videos and awards luncheon for this year.)

NOMINATION

A Principal Investigator may submit one nomination. PIs may re-nominate an employee who did not place first or second in a previous year. Team nominations are limited to no more than five individuals.

DEADLINE

The deadline to submit a nomination is Tuesday, September 8, 2020.  Email your nomination to RCUH Corporate Services at [email protected]. Click here for the nomination form.

For more information, please refer to policy 3.450 Outstanding Employees of the Year Awards or contact RCUH Corporate Services at [email protected] or 808-988-8314.

Project Title	To provide legal services related to employment, to the RCUH Corporate Office.
Selected Consultant	Barry W. Marr, Esq. (Marr Jones & Wang)
Contract Amount	$50,000.00
Date of Award	July 10, 2020
Consultants Considered (ranked candidates only)	Richard M. Rand (Marr Jones & Wang); Sarah O. Wang (Marr Jones & Wang); Christopher J. Cole (Marr Jones & Wang); Patrick H. Jones (Marr Jones & Wang); Kristi O’Heron (Marr Jones & Wang); Newton J. Chu (Torkildson Katz Moore Hetherington Harris & Knorek); Christopher S.Y. Yeh (Marr Jones & Wang); Megumi Sakae (Marr Jones & Wang); Eileen C. Zorc (Marr Jones & Wang); Cecily D.M. Kaya (Marr Jones & Wang); Andrea L. Miyashita (Marr Jones & Wang).
Appointing Officer	Leonard R. Gouveia, Jr.
Project Title	To provide legal services related to maritime/admiralty, to the RCUH Corporate Office.
Selected Consultant	Michael J. Nakano, Esq. (Cox Wootton Lerner Griffin & Hansen)
Contract Amount	$20,000.00
Date of Award	July 13, 2020
Consultants Considered (ranked candidates only)	No other submissions.
Appointing Officer	Leonard R. Gouveia, Jr.
Project Title	To provide legal services related to immigration, to the RCUH Corporate Office.
Selected Consultant	Newton J. Chu, Esq. (Torkildson Katz Moore Hetherington Harris & Knorek)
Contract Amount	$15,000.00
Date of Award	July 10, 2020
Consultants Considered (ranked candidates only)	Vaughn G.T. Cook (Torkildson Katz Moore Hetherington Harris & Knorek)
Appointing Officer	Leonard R. Gouveia, Jr.
Project Title	To provide legal services related to employee benefits/taxes, to the RCUH Corporate Office.
Selected Consultant	Joseph D’Amato, Esq. (D’Amato & Maloney)
Contract Amount	$40,000.00
Date of Award	July 10, 2020
Consultants Considered (ranked candidates only)	No other applicants in the specialty area of employee benefits.  Other applicants in the general employment field included:  Barry W. Marr, Esq. (Marr Jones & Wang); Richard M. Rand (Marr Jones & Wang); Sarah O. Wang (Marr Jones & Wang); Christopher J. Cole (Marr Jones & Wang); Patrick H. Jones (Marr Jones & Wang); Kristi O’Heron (Marr Jones & Wang); Newton J. Chu (Torkildson Katz Moore Hetherington Harris & Knorek); Christopher S.Y. Yeh (Marr Jones & Wang); Megumi Sakae (Marr Jones & Wang); Eileen C. Zorc (Marr Jones & Wang); Cecily D.M. Kaya (Marr Jones & Wang); Andrea L. Miyashita (Marr Jones & Wang).
Appointing Officer	Leonard R. Gouveia, Jr.
Project Title	To provide legal services related to taxes and payroll, to the RCUH Corporate Office.
Selected Consultant	Vaughn G.T. Cook (Torkildson Katz Moore Hetherington Harris & Knorek)
Contract Amount	$15,000.00
Date of Award	July 10, 2020
Consultants Considered (ranked candidates only)	John J. D’Amato (D’Amato & Maloney) (employee benefits tax only)
Appointing Officer	Leonard R. Gouveia, Jr.