Policy Title: Carry Forward Funds

 

August 18, 1999

 

To:        Deans, Directors and Department Heads

 

From:    Pete Likins, President
            Mike Gottfredson, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs
            and Provost
            Joel Valdez, Senior Vice President for Business Affairs

 

Subject:   Carry Forward Funds

 

This policy is to clarify the use of unexpended funds at the end of each fiscal year and is effective September 1, 1999.

 

1. In order that fund managers continue to be motivated to manage money frugally, they must operate in the expectation that fund balances at the end of the fiscal year will be carried forward to the same accounts. In the absence of genuine fiscal crisis this expectation will be honored.

2. In order to assure that carry forward balances from state and locally budgeted funds can be explained to the satisfaction of any auditor, who might otherwise make claim to unused public funds, it is essential that annual reports after the close of fiscal year accounts document plans for the utilization of carry forward funds above a modest threshold, which we will set at $10,000 per budgeted unit.

3. Any request to the central administration for new funds must always be prioritized relative to expenditures planned from all existing, uncommitted funds. Therefore it is expected that the use of unexpended carry forward balances for new initiatives will always be considered as an alternative to the one-time allocation of new funds from the central administration. Proposals to the central administration for one time expenditures of university funds will be tested against plans for carry forward funds in related accounts. A proposal for a one-time expenditure might then be financed by university funds, by local account funds carried forward, by some combination of the two, or not at all.