UMass Boston Budget Overview
March 27, 2014
Common Funding Sources
1) State Fund (Fund 11000)
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Each year, the President’s Office receives the state appropriation for the University, which is then distributed to each campus.
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The state appropriation for UMass Boston accounts for approximately 25% of the overall operating budget and is solely used to pay benefitted salaries. The primary reason for this is that the fringe benefit costs are picked up by the state.
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The state appropriation is not sufficient to cover all of the University’s salaries and therefore some individuals must be paid from other sources.
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State funds expire on June 30 th of each year and any unspent funds are returned to the state.
Therefore, the Budget Office diligently works to make sure that every state dollar is spent by moving individuals on/off state funds at the end of the year.
2) Tuition Retention Fund (Fund 51006)
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Beginning a few years ago, the Legislature allowed all UMass campuses to retain tuition revenues from out-of-state students.
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The Tuition Retention fund is also used to pay salaries only.
3) General Operating Fund (Fund 51161)
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The General Operating Fund (GOF) was implemented in FY14 and has taken the place of the former Curriculum Trust Fund (CTF, fund 51025), lab fee fund (fund 51151), and hybrid fund
(fund 51079).
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Each department has a general GOF, which it uses to pay for salaries and operating expenses.
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For those departments that charge a lab fee to students, the department has a separate GOF that it uses to pay for lab-related expenses.
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Beginning in FY14, each college has a NTT GOF fund, which replaces the former hybrid fund and is used to pay salaries for non-tenure track faculty.
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Each GOF has a budget established at the beginning of the fiscal year and departments may spend up to the amount of this budget.
4) Education Sales and Services Fund (Fund 51121)
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The Education Sales and Services Fund (ESS) is used for deposits of revenue that the department earns for performing activities outside of the usual course of business (i.e. running a workshop or conference; usually involves small check deposits).
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Prior to FY14, departments that had revenue-sharing agreements with CAPS for online courses and/or programs would receive this revenue transfer into their ESS funds. As of FY14, a separate GOF has been set up at each Dean’s Office to which revenue from the CAPS revenuesharing agreement is transferred. The Dean’s Office is then responsible for transferring these funds to the individual department’s GOFs.
5) Development Fund (Fund 51438)
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The Development Fund reflects monthly/annual donations made through the Advancement
Office and intended for specific colleges/departments.
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6) Research Trust Fund (Fund 52129)
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Sponsored grants that are run through the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP) earn an indirect cost recovery rate (F&A rate). This rate is determined by the federal government.
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Once the books for a specific fiscal year are closed, ORSP transfers 30% of the earned F&A back to the unit that conducted the sponsored research. This 30% F&A amount is further distributed as follows: 15% for the department, 10% for the unit, and 5% for the PI.
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RTF is to be used to support research-related activities.
7) Non-Sponsored Projects
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Non-Sponsored projects are accounts established with specific project IDs and awarded through internal, cross-campus, or endowment funding. Examples include: o Faculty start-up o Healey Public Service grants o Faculty Development grant
8) Sponsored Projects
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Sponsored projects are set-up with specific project IDs (usually beginning with the letter “S”) and are awarded from federal, state, local, and other agencies.
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General Notes Regarding Funds

Budgets are established for the GOFs at the start of each fiscal year, which include a separate budget for salaries, contract employees, and operating expenses. FY14 is the first year in which these budget have been established at specific account code levels. The salary budget is determined through the personnel review process with the Budget Office prior to the start of the new fiscal year. The budget for contract employees and operating expenses is based on historical budget figures.
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Budgets for salaries can only be spent on salaries and fringe benefit payments.
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Budgets in the GOFs for operations (or non-payroll activities) and contract employees have flexibility. Departments can determine how they want to spend these funds through the fiscal year.
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Prior to FY12, unspent budget balances in all accounts automatically “carried forward” into the next fiscal year. Since FY12, the carry-forward is no longer automatically loaded. During the fiscal year budget planning process, departments must identify the amount of unspent funds that they will need to spend in the upcoming fiscal year. The reason for this change is due to the President’s Office implementation of a positive operating margin target. This means that at
UMass Boston, the revenues coming into the University in one year must exceed the amount of total expenditures in the same year. Any funds that are earned in a prior fiscal year and spent in subsequent years negatively affect the operating margin.
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The budget for the lab fee accounts have always been based on a historical figure that may not have been directly tied to revenue brought in by the actual lab fee charged. In planning for
FY15, the Budget Office is trying to tie the projected FY15 lab fee revenues to the budget that will be established for the fund. Departments are currently undergoing an exercise to determine the lab fee budgets, as well as needs for carry forward funding.
Details of the Annual University Budget Process
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The fiscal year begins on July 1 st and ends on June 30 th
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Departments begin to work with their respective Deans’ offices in March/April to develop budgets for the upcoming fiscal year, including what new funds may be needed.
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Each Dean meets with the Provost in April to present his/her cumulative budget needs for the upcoming fiscal year.
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The Provost makes decisions on which items will go forward as part of the Academic Affairs’ budget request, which is presented to the entire group of Vice Chancellors.
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In FY14, over $11 million in new funding needs for the entire University was put forward to the
Vice Chancellor group and only $5 million in new funding was available.
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After several meetings of the Vice Chancellors, they make final budget recommendations to the
Chancellor.
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Decisions are made by the end of June/early July and budgets are then loaded into Peoplesoft.
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