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Budgeting
INTRODUCTION
Greetings, you are reading the BOCC Finance Manual. This manual applies specifically to the Spring 2006 budget cycle for the 2006-2007 fiscal year from July 1st to June 30th. It applies to all college councils under the BOCC umbrella and their subsidiary organizations. It is meant as a guide to assist you in creating next year’s budget.
Information on Line Item Transfers
BUDGET TIMELINE
January 9 - College Council budgets are due to the BOCC Finance Committee in Reitz 301January 13, 14, 15 - Hearings will be conducted with each council and assembly.
January 19 and February 2- There will General Board meeting to have the General Board review,
amend, and pass the 2006-2007 budget. Any changes will be passed on to the Senate Budget Committee.
March 23,24,25, 30,31 and April 1,2 - Hearings will be conducted by Senate to review BOCC's budget.
Early April- The budget will be presented and approved by the full Senate.
GOAL OF THE COLLEGE COUNCIL SYSTEM
The College Council system was designed in the early 1970s as a way to fund activities that, through their academic orientation, serve as extracurricular, co-curricular, and/or honorary functions, the university felt were necessary to fund, but difficult to do so under the "benefit the student body as a whole" mantra. By ensuring that councils existed for every college, the University of Florida ensured that academically centered student organizations could be treated similarly with other SG-funded organizations.The Board of College Councils exists to function as a link between Student Government and the Academic Organizations on campus. The BOCC officers are the Executive Board for the College Council system. It is our duty to prepare you, as best we can, to be great and knowledgeable leaders who are indispensable to your council. We want to help your council achieve its full potential.
The goals of the individual College Councils vary with the officers and the colleges they represent. However, one thing is common across all 20 councils: they work to better the academic reputation of their colleges by ensuring UF's representation at a wide variety of conferences, and continuing to improve educational programming at this university.
OVERALL BOCC BUDGET EXPLAINED
The BOCC's budget is broken down into 22 basic components. 21 are reserved for the College Councils and Interdisciplinary Assemblies, with the last line reserved for the BOCC Executive Board. Currently, SG Finance treats each section as a separate organization. This allows each council president and treasurer to have signing authority and limited autonomy over its own budget.The BOCC executive board has ten budget lines:
-- Special Request Programs -- Special Request travel
-- Internal Programs -- Printing
-- Advertising -- Copies
-- Awards -- Food
-- Off Campus Rental -- Supplies
The first two line items are our special request lines, allowing each council and assembly to request additional funds for unplanned or unexpected events. Our remaining internal lines make up the small amount that the Executive Board reserves for things such as University-wide events, training, promotions, food, socials, etc. Our internal line, including special request money, is limited to 10% of the entire BOCC budget.
Each Council and Assembly craft separate budget requests, taking into account every program and travel request made by their subsidiary organizations and ensuring compliance with the 800 codes (the SG rules for budgeting). The BOCC Executive Board then collects all Council budgets and reviews them in Finance Committee hearings chaired by the Treasurer. After working tirelessly to accommodate everyone's request into the money that we predict Student Government will allocate us, we present the budget to the General Board to approve on two identical readings.
The Budget & Appropriations Committee double checks our work, ensures that we did not accidentally violate any SG rules, makes any necessary adjustments to fit our budget into the larger SG budget, and then passes their recommendation onto the Senate floor. The Senate will then debate and approve the budget at two separate meetings.
We hope this explains our overall budgeting process. We will now turn to how each Council might want to approach their budget.
HOW TO CRAFT A BUDGET WITH SG
Step One: What was your fiscal year budget for 2005-2006?
Knowing your budget for the current year is a great place to start with your budget. BOCC as a whole has been lumped together with Music Ensembles and the Graduate Student Council in an "Academic Organizations" budget. Typically, these three organizations will receive a 5% increase in year. However, this not guaranteed. This increase can be less or more. This year we assume a 3.6% increase.Each of your councils should act the same. Figure out how much 103.6% of this year’s budget is, and use that as a guideline for when you determine your budget. For example, Council X currently has a $18,078.28 budget. Next year, on average, they could reasonably request an $18,729.10 budget, reflecting the 3.6% increase.
You should try to stay within the limits of the 3.6% increase. You can certainly request more if you have had major growth or new projects. If you ask for more money than what the Executive Board thinks is recommended, only you know what is best to remove. Therefore, you should be prepared; knowing what trips or programs should be cut first.
Step Two: Budget Disk from SG
The "Budget Disk" is an Excel spreadsheet designed by the SG Finance Office to facilitate their work with the Academic Organization budgets. It can be downloaded at http://www.uf-bocc.org/budgetdisk/. You must download and fill out the spreadsheet labeled "Organizational-Academic Budget Disk." A link to the budget disk is also available on the BOCC Resources Page.Each subsidiary organization MUST access and complete the budget disk to submit to your College Council. The College Council will also fill out a budget disk for internal programs. Use all of the Budget Disks to plan your requests, including the various programs and travel requests made throughout the year. This can include events you expect to take place next year, as well as events that were done this year and could be done again. However, all events must include some available specifics. If it is a travel request, please indicate which conference and as much information as you can provide. The same guideline applies to program expenditures. If you plan to bring a speaker, please make a note of who the speaker is and the context. Access to the details of an event or trip makes enables the BOCC Finance Committee, and the Budget & Appropriations Committee to justify funding for the event.
Step Three: Line-Items
The SG Budget Disk breaks every budget down into lines. They include:Programs: Just about anything not put in one of these other lines. This line item is typically reserved for a speaker or on-campus event.
Travel: For any conference or event that occurs out of Gainesville.
Advertising: If you want to advertise in the Alligator, on the RTS Buses, or other methods of publicity. You must include the “funded by SG” logo that can be found on the student government website at sg.ufl.edu
Printing: This is used for the printing of any special programs, newsletters, or other paper products that the SG Finance Copy Center cannot provide for you.
Technical: If you need Spinal Tech at an event, or something like that.
Supplies: Can be used for office supplies or as a subsidiary line item under programs when supplies are needed for a specific event.
Copies: 3 cents per copy, only done through SG Copy Center, if you want to make posters for events, meetings, etc.
Awards: Reserved for end of the year/semester awards, must be limited to $30 per person.
Off-Campus
Rental: For any rental of space in Gainesville that is not on campus. Typically for club or restaurant rentals if you want to have a social. Limited to $500 per rental.
Food: This line is meant to increase attendance at events. It is not meant to have a banquet or anything of the like. Limited to the greater of $600 or 8% of your annual budget. All food expenditures must be publicly announced.
Be aware that the money you have in each line from last year isn't locked in
for the next year. If you had $3,000 in programs for this year, and you thought
that it was too much, you can change it however you’d like. Your goal
is keeping 103.6% of your overall budget, you can change the lines as much as
you would like.
As a reminder, the total amount you can transfer without going to Senate is
$1500. In addition, you must always go to Senate to transfer money into travel,
awards, food, and off-campus rental regardless of amount. Therefore, when preparing
your budget make sure you have allocated enough money in those lines that are
more difficult to transfer.
Step Four: Special Requests
All of the special requests that your council made to the BOCC during the previous year have been recorded. Please ensure that they are reflected in your budget so that BOCC's special request line is not used for the same program or travel year after year. The purpose of those lines is to fund new programs or travel requests. If you made a special request this year, add it to your budget for next year. We will consider this in your budget hearing as well.Step Five: Consult SG rules
Before you turn in your budget, please consult SG's rules on budgeting. They are found in the 800 codes. The most common of these rules is that SG funds cannot pay for clothing, banquets, tips, alcohol, or scholarships. Also of note, are some common SG Finance rules that set how much can be budgeted for certain things- 3 cents per copy through the SG Copy Center
- Hotels in Gainesville -- $55/night
- Individual awards cannot exceed $30
- Office supplies can be bought at a discount, and only through SG Finance
- Off campus rental maximum is $500
- DJ maximum is $200
- Napkins, plates, etc. are part of your food line.
- Food lines can be $500 or 8% of your budget
- SG funds cannot be used to host job fairs
- Groups seeking money may not charge dues
Step Six: BOCC Hearings
The BOCC Treasurer will serve as chair of the Finance Committee and the President will serve as vice chair. The Vice President, the Secretary, the five Executives-At-Larges will be the other voting members of this committee. The public may attend, listen in, and give feedback. This committee will convene to review your budgets. The College Council budgets are due at noon on January 9th, 2005. Each council will be required to attend their budget hearing for review of the requested budget. We will proceed program by program to assure compliance with the 800 codes and standards set by the Budget & Appropriations Committee. The more time that is spent by a Council crafting a superb budget will mean the less time you will spend with our committee.We understand that 3.6% is a very small increase for most groups, particularly academic organizations. Requesting more is perfectly fine, if that is what you need. However, in anticipating that, we will look at several factors during the hearings to determine how much of an increase each council will receive:
- Amount unspent in the 2003-2005 fiscal years
- Spending habits of the 2004-05 fiscal year
- The results of the fall audits of this year
- Activity and compliance with BOCC policy, including attendance
- Use of BOCC special request funds
- Growth in clubs and programming for each College Council
For example, examine the Y College Council. YCC had 50% unspent during 2003-2004,
have not spent much of their money this year, and had no plans to spend the
money during audits. YCC rarely shows up to BOCC meetings and had a few groups
become inactive during the year. YCC is asking BOCC Finance for a 5% increase,
from $10,000 to $10,500. While we would like to help YCC, let's consider another
council that is also looking for an increase.
The Z College Council had 2% unspent during 2003-2004, have hosted exceptional
programs and events throughout year, they presented a clear plan during audits,
ZCC is an active participant in our meetings, ZCC is growing quite fast with
several new clubs under their wing, and ZCC made use of $500 in special requests.
ZCC is asking for an increase from $10,000 to $10,500.
In this hypothetical situation, with only $500 to give to both groups, we are
likely to flat line YCC and ask them to spend the upcoming year rebuilding their
organization, noting the large amount of unspent money. We would then give ZCC
the $500 we have to give. This of course, is only a hypothetical. While the
BOCC budget process is not competitive, with a limited amount of resources,
the funding increases will be given to the Councils that show they have a definite
need.
After all the hearings are conducted in the first round, and we have reached
the target number that the Activity and Service Fee Committee provides the Academic
Organizations, we will present the overall budget to the General Board for a
vote on January 27, 2005. We must compile the budgets together and deliver them
to the Senate Budget committee on January 18, 2005; any changes made by the
General Board will be forwarded to the Budget Committee. During the 2004 budgeting
for the 2004-2005 fiscal year, 5 councils received cuts and 8 councils received
increases greater than 5%.
Step Seven: SG & the Senate Budget & Appropriations Committee
At this stage, your council's budget has been drafted, reviewed
for potential errors, discussed by the BOCC Finance Committee, altered to accommodate
our overall budget outlook and passed by a majority of the General Board. Your
council may have escaped all of this with a 5% increase, a 15% increase, no
increase, or even perhaps a decrease.
Now, the Senate Budget & Appropriations Committee will double-check our
work. They will also go through much of the same process we did, hoping to make
our overall budget request fit in line with the requests of the GSC and Music
Ensembles. They will critique specific money amounts, and particular decisions
on increases. You are invited to attend and defend your requests; however, this
is usually not necessary.
After this process goes through two readings with Senate Budget and Appropriations
Committee, our budget goes before the Student Senate. We will present the budget
with the Senate Budget Committee and argue on your behalf against any negative
amendments proposed. It will then pass two readings of the Student Senate, and
will be signed into law by the Student Body President and Treasurer.
By the end of March, the incoming officers of the councils and BOCC will know
an exact budget amount that was approved by the Senate. We hope this guide was
helpful. If you still have questions please contact BOCC President Keith
McCartney or BOCC Treasurer Steven Kelly.
Line Item Transfers are relatively simple and quick. The laws
governing Line Item Transfers are available at: http://sg.ufl.edu/branches/finance/800codes/chapter802.aspx.
In summary,
Any amount less than $1500 (per semester) may be moved with approval of the
Council President, Treasurer and SB Treasurer. Any amount over $1500 must go
to the Student Senate for approval (contact Keith
for more information). You may not move money INTO Off-Campus, Travel, Food,
Awards, or OSRV; however, you move money OUT of these lines.
Forms will be available online shortly, they are currently are available in the SG Finance Office.