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College Budget Transfers

CHSS Finance processes budget transfer transactions between orgs every month towards the end of the month. They are used to recognize a variety of actions as for example, support of events, activities, changes in the teaching load that impact the allotment of PT funds, commitments, reallocation of resources within the unit (for example from PT to GA) and etc.

Budget transfers are processed by Karina & Laura based on appropriate documentation (usually e-mail) and the department is notified of them via an interoffice memo on the next day. If you have seen this memo before you will notice in October that we have changed its layout to make sure the important information (as for example the description of the transfer) is highlighted and the two orgs impacted are clearly displayed.

Please remember that the description field in Banner has a limited number of characters and sometimes we need to truncate the transfer description to make sure it fits. If you have any questions about the transfer, don't hesitate to contact Karina or Laura to get more information.

Faculty Raises & Timing of Notification

Departments have entered faculty raise amounts into BTS. CHSS will submit this information to the Provost and Budget offices, and they will review and approve the raises by the end of October or early November. As was done last year, faculty will receive individual emails from the Provost office informing them of their raise amount near the Thanksgiving time frame.

Budget Reviews

Leslie, Karina and Laura will be scheduling individual budget review meetings with departments and programs toward the end of October and early November. The review includes E&G, indirect, sponsored programs and unrestricted carry over funds. The meetings help us identify outstanding issues, evaluate and forecast budget balances, clarify questions related to any processes, review charges and commitments, teaching load and many other items.

Tenured and Tenure Track Faculty and the 2-2 Load

The college is moving forward to implement a more structured system that ties research productivity for tenured and tenure track faculty to their individual teaching loads. Each department will clearly define different levels of research productivity that are tied to a 2-2 load, a 2-3 load, a 3-3 load, etc.

This will be effective in the fall of 2008, and departments will be putting together detailed plans over the next several months. We will be looking at ways to enhance the Teaching Load function in BTS to track individual faculty teaching loads as well as administrative reductions.

Part-time faculty and graduate assistant raises

Part-time faculty and graduate assistant increases are set at 4.00% for the second semester. If you have students who were hired under your E&G orgs for the full academic year or only for the spring semester, no action is necessary on your part to have their stipend increased. The increase will be processed centrally as of 01/10 for the remaining 9 pay periods of the year.

Laura will be contacting you in mid-December about the students hired under sponsored projects and you will have the opportunity to discuss with the project's PI and decide if the project allows the raise.

Spring grad assistant and adjunct assignments

We will soon be opening BTS again for you to enter your department assignments for the Spring semester. We plan to do that in the first weeks of November. We don't have the official recommended matrix rates yet from the Provost Office and we are just waiting on the document to make sure BTS is set up correctly. The matrix rates should be increased by 4% but the official salaries are rounded.

We should give you until before the winter break to enter the grad assistants’ assignments and until right after the break for you to enter your part-time assignments. Laura will be sharing with you a calendar with specific dates and deadlines as soon as possible.

New Lodging and Per Diem Rates

New rates have been established effective October 1, 2007 and are posted on the travel website. Please make your faculty aware of the changes as they are planning their upcoming trips, and help ensure that Travel Authorization Requests are submitted before the travel takes place. If you still need to find previous rates for travel prior to October 1, please contact Marlies.

Authorized Travel cost vs. actual travel expenses

When submitting a Travel Authorization Request, please make sure that all travel cost are calculated, including those that are not going to be reimbursed (e.g. airfare paid by MasterCard). Please consider and list all expenses carefully and remind faculty staying in conference hotels to indicate that on the form. If the reimbursement request is more than $50 over the authorized amount, a revised authorization with an explanation is needed.

More on Travel reimbursements

In order for a reimbursement request to be processed quickly, please ensure that all information is complete (e.g. G numbers, org. numbers, phone numbers, address, original receipts, and boarding passes). The travel office is seeing an increase in incomplete reimbursement requests.

If there is a deduction in the travel reimbursement of $20 or more, the traveler now receives a letter explaining the reason for the deduction.

Also, if a traveler is mixing business air travel and personal air travel, it is necessary to obtain price quotes for the portion of the personal travel. Please remind your faculty of this policy.

Info Session Binder

A link to the pages of your info session binder in pdf format is now on our web page. Should you need additional pages of individual sections, please follow this link and print your copies.

Electronic Food and Beverage Orders

Please remember to place your order at least three days prior to your event. In order to ensure quick approval, make sure that the purpose of the event, the department, org. number, and type of function are clearly stated. There is plenty of space under “purpose” to give information on the nature of the event and names of attendees. If someone at Sodexho is entering the order for you, give them all the information necessary for approval.