The budget for each fiscal year is developed primarily during the preceding fall semester.  For example, the budget for fiscal year 2010 will be developed during the fall semester of the 2008-09 academic year.  The President's Cabinet meets in late August to review and determine key assumptions about the next year's budget, primarily tuition rates and the target for non-personnel expenses.

The individual department's access to the budget development program in Financial Serlve Service begins on the first day of classes of the fall semester.  Administrative departments have 4 weeks and academic departments have 5 weeks to complete their budget requests online.  The departments' access to the budget development program is shut down at the conlclusion of each deadline. The vice presidents of each division continue to have on-line access for review and editing purposes until the first week of November.  At that time, the vice presdients' on-line access is shut down so that Financial Services can compile, review, and proof the draft budget and identify out -of-blanace conditions and budget concerns.

Financial Services then meets with each indvidual vice president in mid to late November to review each division's submission, compare the overall divisional request to the division's target for non-personnel expenses and review requests for capital items, computer hardware, computer software, equipment and new personnel.  Subsequent to these meetings, Financial Services meets with the Vice President for Finance & Business to rpesent the draft budget and to make any further refinements and adjustments where necessary.  The budget then goes to the President's Cabinet for its review in December.

From January to June the proposed budget is then reviewed at various points by the Finance Committee of the Board of Trustees and by the Board itself.  A final vote on the budget is taken at the meeting of the Board in June.  The Board waits until that time to take final action on the budget in order to confirm that enrollment projections for the next academic year, upon which the budget is largely based, have been met and/or exceeded.  During this entire period, from the vice presidents' review to the final vote by the Board, a department may access its proposed budget for the next fiscal year through Finance Self Service.  The data may be obtained through the Budget Development query function of the program.  This program makes for a transparent budget development process and allows a department to plan ahead for its next fiscal year's activities.