Budget Responsibility and Monitoring

The overall responsibility for the review, monitoring, and control of the College's operating budgets rests with the President and the Vice President for Administrative Services who, in turn, delegates various control responsibilities to the Controller. However, routine budget performance and reviews are carried out at the operational level by the vice presidents, deans, department heads, and project directors. The effectiveness of good budget administration is measured to a large degree by how well goals and objectives are achieved through the effective utilization of financial resources which are provided in the budget.

On-line budget inquiry is available to budget administrators through the Banner Finance Self Service system. This system will aid in the continuous process of monitoring expenditures and ensuring a department's budget expenses do not exceed available budget balances.

In the interest of sound financial management and in order to promote and encourage a broad understanding of the College's financial recordkeeping and reporting system, please go to the Controller Operations section of the online Administrative Guidelines.

Encumbrances

It is the responsibility of each Department Head and the Controller to ensure that departmental expenditures do not exceed departmental appropriated budgets. To this end, all requisitions for goods and services will result in an encumbrance (set-aside) of monies from the respective unit's expenditure budget. This reduces the available balance in the expense category pool from which the encumbrance is made.

While in the process of encumbering funds, if the Purchasing staff discovers that the available budget balance is not adequate for a particular order, the respective Budget Unit Head will be notified. It is the responsibility of the Budget Unit Head to initiate a budget transfer if appropriate. Under no circumstance will a Budget Unit Head be permitted to overspend his/her budget.