FY13 Budget Process & Materials
The FY13 budget materials, including the Budget Workbook Instructions, are now available in MRS. The
college is shifting back to the more “traditional” college process rotating units through a three-year cycle
of strategic budget & planning meetings rather than meeting with each unit each year. The following
units have been selected for a meeting this year:
DAAS
Economics
Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Earth & Environmental Services
History
International Institute
Mathematics
MCDB
Near Eastern Studies
Philosophy
Political Science
Psychology
Romance Languages
Sociology
Units with a meeting must update their strategic budget narrative and send to their analyst at least 4
weeks prior to the meeting date, which will begin in January. All units, including those not selected for a
budget meeting, need to complete their budget requests, faculty effort reporting worksheet, graduate
student funding plan and updated 6% budget reduction plan (for units that have not yet met the budget
reduction targets) by January 3rd.
Annual Certification meetings
This was the second year that the annual certification was completed electronically within M-Reports,
and the first time for the gap analysis review. The Budget & Finance team is wrapping up annual
meetings with each unit to talk through unit certification and gap responses, as well as gather feedback
about the certification process and the quarterly reviews that are completed as part of our internal
control efforts. The feedback has been instrumental in identifying opportunities for continued
improvement.
New Training Calendar
A new calendar of monthly training sessions is attached and will be published on the LSA Budget &
Finance Team website. Topics range from Business Objects to Recharge Rates to Reconciliation. Please
review the course descriptions and attend any of the sessions that would be beneficial to your job
responsibilities. The course on Reconciliation was held on November 4th with strong attendance and
participation. Materials for this course will be made available online with a plan to publish materials for
future courses as they become available. Please contact your analyst with any questions or if you have
suggestions for future topics.
Concur Best Practices
Procurement Services recently introduced some new tools, including a new Concur Best Practices
webpage, to support customers in the use of Concur Travel and Expense Management system. This
webpage includes recommendations on ways to use the system to realize business process efficiencies
and help uphold our responsibilities as stewards of the university’s financial resources. In addition there
is a new quarterly opt-in e-newsletter titled Procurement Services News for anyone interested in
procurement news, policy updates, upcoming events and helpful hints. Take a moment to add yourself
to the newsletter group at https://mcommunity.umich.edu. Locate the Procurement Services News
group and select the “Join this Group” option. You can remove yourself from the group at any time.
Development Events
Please remember that hosting events related to development should be routed to LSA-DMC
(Development, Marketing & Communications) for approval. Send an email to Martha Luckham
(mluckham@umich.edu) outlining plans of the event, including the business purpose and planned
attendees. Martha will then review the information to determine if the event is fundraising, donor
relations or stewarding, and will notify the unit of the approval. These approvals can then be attached
as appropriate to Concur expense reports.
Facilities/Finance Focus
Changes within Budget & Finance occurred this past quarter with a heightened partnership between
Facilities and Finance. Linda Clark was recently hired as the new Financial Specialist focused on
Facilities. This is part of an internal reorganization following Barb Wexall’s retirement in August.
Analyst Assignments
Adjustments were made this past quarter with several units receiving a new assigned analyst. This was
necessary due to an evolving shift to shared services by many of our units, increased financial
management support now being provided for Undergraduate Education units, and turnover within our
team. A current list of staff is available on the Budget and Finance website. The Financial Analyst Look
Up (download file) continues to be updated as a quick tool to view which analyst is currently assigned to
your unit.
Please let your analyst know if you have any questions or needs related to any of these items.
Thank you for all of your efforts.
The Budget and Finance Team
Please note: This email group (lsafinstaff) is open to any financial staff that would benefit from hearing
about financial updates from LSA. Please encourage individuals in your unit with financial
responsibilities to add themselves to the distribution list using the “Join Group” option in the new
MCommunity Directory (https://mcommunity.umich.edu/#group:lsafinstaff).
These quarterly emails can also be found on the LSA Budget and Finance website under the News and
Events section:
http://lsa.umich.edu/facstaff/finance/budget