Financial Planning and Budgets

1). The vision of the Financial Planning and Budgets Team is to

• Create transparency in the budget process;
• Simplify the budget and planning processes so they are easier to understand and more efficient to operate;
• Align resources to enable the strategic plan, enrollment growth, and sustaining operations;
• Lead Tarleton in the efforts to be proactive in planning and forecasting financial requirements across the organization to reduce the need for requests within the year.

2) Financial Planning and Budgets will operate according to the following principles:

• Automate processes to be more efficient and effective;
• Provide metrics and SLAs to measure and manage performance;
• Produce an annual short-term budget between October and February each year for the following fiscal year;
• Produce a 5-year long-term budget between October and February each year;
• Forecast financial requirements (people, processes, data, technology, and organizational change such as training and communication) for the strategic plan and enrollment growth quarterly with prioritization by the Cabinet annually.

3) Financial Planning and Budgets has established the following operating practices to ensure efficiency, effectiveness and transparency:

• Budget requests (operating expense and headcount) for the strategic plan must be discussed with the Objective Owner and approved by the Goal Owner;
• Budget requests (operating expense and headcount) for the strategic plan are prioritized by the Goal Owner, CFO and President and will be implemented at the beginning of the fiscal year;
• Budget requests (operating expense and headcount) related to enrollment growth will be forecast annually and approved by the CFO and President as part of the annual budgeting process;
• Budget requests (operating expense and headcount) related to sustaining operations will be addressed by the Vice President for each Division;
• Headcount reclassifications and vacancies require Vice President and CFO approval; and
• Exceptions to address emergency funding needs during a fiscal year require approval of the CFO and President.