budget/inventory office door

Salary and Benefits

Position Roles and Responsibilities

Budget Administrators

Within PeopleSoft, each department and project is assigned a Budget Administrator, who is responsible for the financial and budgetary operation of that department and project. Budget administrators can designate certain authority and responsibility to other exempt and non-exempt employees, but ultimate authority and responsibility rest with the budget administrator.

For Academic Chairs, the level of budget/fiscal responsibility is referenced in the Faculty Handbook Chapter 2-29: Department Administration:

The Chair is responsible for the efficient operation of the department as an administrative structure within the University. According to the school’s written policy on the roles of chairs, this responsibility may include:

  • Working with the department faculty, Dean and Personnel Office to arrange secretarial and technical services;
  • Supervising and evaluating clerical staff;
  • Maintaining records, especially assessment reports, on such matters as majors, graduates, faculty, budget, facilities and equipment;
  • Disseminating relevant information within the department and responding to requests for information from other offices of the University;
  • Preparing budget requests and monitoring the use of fiscal resources;
  • Overseeing the maintenance and use of equipment and facilities assigned to the department; and
  • Developing, implementing, evaluating and enforcing departmental safety policies.

Administrative Support Positions

For non-exempt staff positions, the level of budget/fiscal responsibility is noted on the position’s Position Information (PI) form consistent with the USM Job Specification. Overall, these positions gather, retrieve, consolidate budget information and run reports, as well as may assist with the developing, preparing, updating accounts, and monitoring/tracking. They should not be making final budget decisions; this is the purview of the budget administrators.

Signing Authority

As noted above, budget administrators can designate authority, in case signing authority to other exempt and non-exempt employees. Signing authority is the authority assigned to SU employees to allow them to approve expenses charged to their departments and projects (i.e., grants, fellowships). Budget Administrators (BAs) by default have signing authority for their respective departments and projects. This allows BAs to approve SU requisitions, work orders, expense accounts and any other documents that result in expenses being incurred. The signing authority policy.

01 Budget Category – Exempt and Non-Exempt PIN Employees

01 Budget Category – Faculty PIN Employees

02 Budget Category – All Non-PIN Staff Employees

Overtime

When preparing your budget submission, please review any overtime costs (account number 010420) for the last few fiscal years and budget an appropriate amount for this fiscal year based on that history plus any future considerations.

If you are completing the template from scratch online – there is a section added to include estimating overtime for PIN 01 Budget Category employees. However; if you are using your prior year template, please add a note in the notes/comments tab regarding your overtime estimate so that we can incorporate that in your original budget.

The amount of overtime allotted should be as minimal as possible. The form to track the hours during the fiscal year can be found in the Manager's Toolkit

Overtime in the 02 Budget Category should be a separate line item you insert on the “02-Contract’Student’Grad Asst” tab within the proper employee classification section and providing the reason for the anticipated overtime.

Tuition Remission

Tuition Remission for those eligible employees will be covered by the University. These expenses will be charged to the employee’s department. Please review prior fiscal years for account code 018100 to determine an appropriate budget amount. If you are aware of individual faculty and staff in your department that may be utilizing this benefit in the following year, please mention that in the notes/comments section of your budget template when submitting. This would be helpful to the Budget Office to determine the amount to increase for projected tuition remission expenditures.

Position Reclassifications

Position reclassification may occur when significant and substantial changes occur in the primary duties of the position and that may result in a salary change. Information about the process can be found on the HR website.

For budgeting purposes, if you are aware of positions within your department you anticipate requesting a reclassification for, please consider that and note within your Budget Submission Template. It is also requested that you email HR to notify them in advance of how many positions reclassifications you are anticipating for their planning purposes. They should also be able to help you estimate a salary difference for these positions so they can be accounted for in the budget. Please keep in mind that budgeting for this does not grant the overall approval of the position change nor the increase requested.

Reversal June 30 FY July 1 FY
Recording of June 21-30 accrual $10,000 -$10,000
Recording of PPE July 4 actual 0 $14,000
Net Expenses by FY $10,000 $ 4,000