Prevent same project ID in different BUs

Hi,

Currently we are experiencing an issue with having same project IDs used in different Business Units. Exactly what happens is the following: when proposals are entered in the system, a project id is created. At the time, proposal is fully funded at ready to be award generated, we get the error message that the project id is used in other business unit. We don't want to assign another project id since we bring out of sync proposals with awards and also with the 3rd party system from where we interface proposal data.

Is there any suggestions what can be done in order to have the system validate the project id before assigning it?