Kentucky is allowed to charge 10% indirect cost, but the reimbursement per hour of our employees time is lower than what it costs the state per hour of their salary. The indirect cost doesn't make up the gap. Salary and fringe per employee is about $50 per hour, but we are contracted to charge $35 per hour plus 10%.

Conservation Districts in Maine were using our State Department of Agriculture, Conservation & Forestry's approved Negotiated Indirect Cost Rate Agreement. However, I'm now hearing that NRCS only wants to allow the de minimis 10% indirect cost rate.
As one of my District managers said: "we will NOT subsidize NRCS to have us do their work!". These hidden costs of implementing conservation programs weaken the entire system.

Here in Washington we aren't collecting anything for indirect/overhead on our contribution agreement with NRCS; our agreement includes a state agency contribution amount which is essentially our overhead/admin costs counting as part of that committed match. However, we enter into task orders under this umbrella agreement with conservation districts for units of work to help NRCS deliver Farm Bill programs - NRCS staff negotiate with the conservation districts a per-unit cost for the deliverables which may include all of the costs of completing each unit of work. Billings are per unit of work completed at the negotiated unit cost. Happy to visit further about this structure, which btw may be changing if our NRCS state office decides to competitively bid out the work.