/Institutions/United-States-University/json/current/Policy-and-Procedure-Manual-local.json

/Institutions/United-States-University/json/current/Policy-and-Procedure-Manual.json

501 - Budget

Title:	Budget
Owner:	Chief Financial Officer
Last Updated/Revised:	05/01/2024

Policy: The budget policy provides an overview and defines the overall approach to the annual institutional planning process. This process assist the university in support to achieve its goals, initiatives and overall strategy. 

Budget Owners by Functional Area

Below is a list of the functional areas and the respective budget owners. 

Faculty (Full-Time)	Provost and Deans
College Administration	Provost and Deans
President's Office	President
Accreditation and Regulatory Fees	CFO and VP of Academic and Regulatory Operations (AGI)
Provost's Office	Provost
Student Services/Academic Advising	Provost and Director of Student Services
Registrar/Student Records	Provost and University Registrar
Office of Field Experience	Dean and Director, Office of Field Experience
Faculty (adjunct)	Provost and CFO
Admission/Enrollment	President, Director of Enrollment
Marketing	VP, Marketing (AGI)
Finance	CFO
Facilities and General Administration	CFO
Financial Aid	CFO and AVP, Financial Aid (AGI)
Student Accounts	CFO and VP, Student Accounts (AGI)

Roles and Responsibilities

Chief Financial Officer

• Model enrollment scenarios to produce student populations by month, cohort, and program. Collaborate with budget owners of functional areas to account for costs driven by student counts. This will include staffing for ratio-driven functions (i.e., student advising, full-time faculty), as well as for non-labor costs (i.e., SIS costs and tutoring expenses).

• CFO will pre-populate budget templates with existing employees for budget owners for their respective functional areas. Overall assumptions will be provided for payroll taxes and fringe benefits. 

• CFO will provide historical expenses by vendor and month for budget owners to assist with establishing the non-labor expense baseline. 

• CFO will work with AGI employees to account for costs directly charged to the institution.

• CFO will also aggregate the budget submissions from all budget owners into a consolidated P&L format for review with the President and Provost. Incremental costs (labor & non-labor) will be separated and prioritized based on institutional goals and overall profitability targets. 

• Other analysis will be performed on an ad-hoc basis (i.e., cost-benefit analysis).

Budget Owners

• Validate existing employees and timing of annual merit increases. Provide key assumptions for incremental positions (month of hire, estimate of annual compensation) as well as business justification (how this position will support institutional goals).

• Provide assumptions for employee-drive-costs: this will include travel, conferences, training, professional memberships/licensing, and hardware. Submissions should include employee professional development with estimates on timing and expense type (i.e., could be training cost, conference fee, and/or related travel).

• Provide assumptions and justifications for existing and incremental non-labor costs. Leverage student population data for student driven costs (i.e., external testing, supplies, other program driven expenses). This could be software, database subscriptions, or other vendors. New cost proposals should be aligned with annual institutional goals. Budget owners should work with the CFO to run any ad-hoc analysis, as needed.

• Incorporate and update any recommended changes and adjustments based on feedback after internal consolidated reviews by the President, Provost, and CFO.

Purpose: To describe the overall structure and process of the annual budget process.

Procedure:

1. In January and February:
   1. The CFO, working in conjunction with the Deans of each college at USU, will provide a calendarized view of marketing/advertising spend for the year, and the resulting total number of leads per month. The USU CFO and Director of Enrollment will look at historical conversion rates to establish the number of new enrollments by program for each session within the coming fiscal year. Additional scenarios may be run, final budget assumptions for new enrollment may not be finalized until February or March.
   2. The USU CFO leverages the new enrollment forecast in conjunction with expected returning population of students to update the institutional tuition/fee model to generate top-line revenue by month.
   3. Budget kickoff meetings are held between the CFO and institutional budget owners. In these meetings, projected student population as well as historical revenue/expense data are shared with each budget owner. Existing employee data is also shared to establish current labor run-rate. Expense templates are provided to budget owners to populate and return to the CFO in February.
   4. Budget owners will populate budget templates and submit to the CFO for aggregation. These budget templates will include requests for incremental hiring (student ratio-driven as well as incremental staff), and will also include ongoing non-labor expenses as well as for new costs to support the institution.
   5. The CFO will aggregate the expenses and generate a preliminary institutional P&L to review with the USU President and Provost. Incremental labor and non-labor requests are prioritized based on the institution's annual goals, and suggested adjustments are sent back to individual budget owner for revision. 
2. In March:
   1. Revised budget templates are sent and incorporated by the CFO into an updated institutional P&L for review with the President and Provost. There may be multiple rounds of changes/adjustments to the budget: this will be managed by the CFO working directly with budget owners, scheduling working meetings.
   2. The institutional P&L will be presented to the AGI CEO and CFO for review, along with detailed staffing and expense requests. Any recommended changes/adjustments will be managed within the institution. 
3. In April:
   1.  Updated institutional P&L is presented to the AGI CEO and CFO.
   2. Final P&L is presented to the Finance Committee of the USU Board of Trustees for approval.

Scope: The scope of this policy applies to all department heads responsible for budgeting within their department.

Documents and Forms:

• Budget Templates/Worksheets (Provided by CFO)