Policies & Procedures

Requests for New Operating Budget Appropriation - Indicate fiscal year for which funds are being requested. Senior executive officers will consolidate and prioritize the funding needs submitted to them by various departments/colleges reporting to them. They will submit their division-level budget priorities, along with the other applicable budget request forms, to the Office of Budget and the University Budget Committee. Senior executive officers will be asked to present before the UBC members their next budget year's operating budget requests, and the operating and capital budget appropriation requests for the upcoming fiscal year (i.e. 2 fiscal years from current fiscal year) early next year. The UBC will make its budget recommendations to the University President. The budget requests for the upcoming fiscal year approved by the University President will require CSU Board approval to seek appropriation funding from the State through the legislative budgeting process.

Reallocation Recommendations for President (or designees) and Vice-Presidents Only - Due to our current budgetary situation at CSU and the State as a whole, reallocation process is very important in order to fund unfunded critical needs. This form may be used to permanently reallocate resources between line items and departments within or among colleges. Since this is a reallocation, budget changes should be zero sum transactions (total decrease column should equal total increase column). You will get an error message if the 2 columns are not equal. Only permanent budget changes approved by the University President or Vice-Presidents will be processed by the Office of Budget.

Capital Requests - Indicate your capital budget appropriation requests for the upcoming fiscal year and beyond. Complete the narrative questions concerning the capital project(s) being requested. Click here to download the Illinois Board of Higher Education's Project Narrative Instructions. You may need some input/assistance from the Physical Plant department to arrive at an estimated project cost.

Request to Institutionalize Grants (Optional) - This form will be completed only for grant-funded initiatives/programs that will now be funded with state appropriation dollars. Provide justification why the grant should be institutionalized, its benefits to CSU, and the department and current students. Submit supporting documents regarding how the program costs including personnel will be covered by the requesting department and/or college or division. Indicate fiscal year and priority.

Please submit the division-level budget request forms to the Office of Budget electronically at obudget@csu.edu and hard copy request forms to UBC.

The Office of Budget will coordinate the development of the Internal Operating Budget for Non-Appropriated funds, which will be submitted in summary form for Board approval. It is very important to explore revenue-generating opportunities to meet the operating needs of your units and be able to serve our students, faculty and staff.

Under the CSU Accounting System called Banner, each organization must indicate both expected revenue and anticipated expenditures. The approved detailed budgets will be loaded into the Banner system as your initial budget. If your actual revenues vary significantly from your estimate, you will be asked to adjust your budget during the fiscal year.

As fiscal officer you are expected to manage your expenditures to meet your needs, but not exceed your annual actual revenues (net of uncollectible allowance, if applicable).

The fiscal officers will be asked to complete the spreadsheet(s) showing the budget year's projected revenue and planned spending in the self-supporting organization(s). The year-end balance must be zero (balanced) or positive (surplus), but not negative (deficit). 

To assist fiscal officers in formulating the revenue and expenditures budgets, the following will be provided:

1. Current fiscal year budget for personal services
2. Prior-year and current fiscal year-to-date report on revenues and expenditures
3. Projected mandatory fee revenues based on enrollment (for selected organizations)

The fiscal officers are requested to submit electronically the preliminary draft budgets to the Office of Budget for further review and discussion by the first week in April PRIOR to sending your budget submission to your vice-president/president approval. The final budget and personal services details will be forwarded by the Office of Budget to both the fiscal officers and vice presidents/president for electronic approval no later than the third week in April prior to the next fiscal year.

Key guidelines for the budget submission are as follows:

1. Revenue increases of at least 10% will need a justification statement.
2. Organizations which receive their revenues from mandatory fees (e.g., Athletics, Health, Student Union, Facility, Technology, Activity, Bond Revenue, Campus Improvement, Grant-in-Aid) should plan on using an allowance rate of 5% for un-collectibles.
3. The revenue budget is after the allowance for uncollectible and detail the total anticipated expenditure budget by line item. The total expenditure budget may not exceed projected revenues less allowance.
4. Special care should be taken in completing the following expenditure items for the next fiscal year:

Personal Services

1. Salaries – All continuing personnel salaries are provided at their current annualized salary. Unless prior agreement with the Office of Budget has been made for transfer of a position to other funds, budget all of your current positions. Report vacant positions on a separate line. Provide a reserve for a salary increase for continuing employees in the next fiscal year. Salary increase reserves will have a separate salary line, SI3XXX.
2. Temporary Administrators (TA), Extra Help (XH), Student Aide (ST), Overrides (OR), Overtime (OT) and Temporary Upgrades (UP) - Salary lines for each of these positions should be specifically identified and budgeted in the personal services detail and included in the personal services total. Enter a budget of zero for any salary line not applicable to your operation. Please note that if you budget zero for any salary line such as overtime, you will not have authority in your budget to incur overtime expenses, unless a budget transfer is submitted and approved to fund the expense.
3. New Positions - New positions added for the next fiscal year should be defined by Position Class Number, Title, and should include items (2) through (4) as shown below.

Example:   Position Title

C6132 Project Director

0846 Secretary III

If you do not know the position title or salary level for the new position, please obtain the needed information from Human Resources.

For new staff hired into the created position, please provide:

1. Individual's Name
2. Percent Time Working on Project, if not 100%
3. Number of Months Employment
4. Total Salary for the Budget Year

Non-salary Items

Please indicate the dollar amounts proposed for each non-salary item. Enter budget of zero for any line item not applicable to your operation. If you have any questions regarding appropriate use of the line items, please call the Office of Budget.

Social Security/Medicare (7.65% for extra help; and 1.45% for all others) represents the employer’s required match and is charged to non-appropriated accounts with personal services.

Selected organizations may be asked to provide details of special operational expenses.

Refer to CSU X-Press to see your prior and current fiscal year's year-to-date activities as a guide to help you draft the budget for the new fiscal year.

If you have any questions, please call the Office of Budget at ext. 2063.

As we prepare, plan and develop the next fiscal year’s operating budget, we would like to better understand the spending plan of each department by line item (contractual, commodities, travel, etc.) in light of the limited financial resources of the University by completing these forms. 

The Expense tab asks for the division, organization number, organization title, account number, account title, details (e.g. lab equipment lease, maintenance contracts with vendors A & B), and dollar amount (annual cost). Expenses of at least $5,000 must be listed on the Expense worksheet(s). Note that the information supplied in the Expense worksheet(s) will be used for planning and decision-making purposes in formulating the spending plan/operating expenditure budgets for the next budget year.  This list does not suggest nor signify approval of the expenditures, and will require the approval of the operating vice-president and president (direct reports only) prior to submission to the Office of Budget for further review.  Only expenditures reviewed and approved by the CFO and President will be included in the next budget year's spending plan/operating budget.

The Reallocation tab is similar to the budget change form (for permanent budget changes only).  With no new operating funds but with expanded or new programmatic priorities being implemented, it is critically important to reallocate our financial resources from some areas within the departments and/or divisions to fund these priorities in the next budget year. Please complete the Reallocation worksheet(s) as well.

Division heads and deans, please share this file with your fiscal officers to complete. Return the completed Expense and Reallocation worksheets to the Office of Budget at obudget@csu.edu by the deadline.