Office of Budgeting & Financial Analysis

Over the past 18 months, Texas State University has embarked on a journey to enhance our legacy budget allocation process to make it more strategic and transparent. While no changes to our budget processes were ever contemplated for FY26 (which starts 9/1/2025), our original timeline called for running a pilot program using alternate budget reporting for FY26 to gather additional feedback and inform any decisions we might want to consider for FY27.

In order to provide more time for reflection and feedback, and to await the final results of the current legislative session on our budget and operations, we will spend an additional year preparing, researching, planning, and discussing our options before introducing a pilot program. Therefore, we will not be distributing “parallel” budget reporting next fiscal year. However, we will continue to make strategic changes and improvements to our budget approach within the structure of our current budget model.

This project has already yielded several benefits to the university community, including hosting multiple educational sessions on budgeting and resource allocation for academic leaders, having a committee learn about university budgeting approaches and debate possible changes openly, and providing training on the entrepreneurial role of the Dean. More directly, the project has resulted in a complete review of the “Academic Profit and Loss” statements that we have historically relied on, greatly improving their accuracy.

I want to take a moment to recognize the work that has been done to get us to this point and the efforts of faculty and staff across the university. As we move forward, we invite you to join us on this continuing journey and to share your thoughts and ideas to help shape our future. Together we will focus on the following next steps in the coming year:

1. Continued Research and Planning: We will continue researching, discussing and planning to ensure that a future budget model is well-informed and strategically sound.
2. Engagement and Feedback: We will continue to engage with Deans, Chairs, Directors, and other stakeholders to gather feedback and ensure that their insights are incorporated.
3. Educational Sessions: We will host additional educational sessions on budgeting and resource allocation to keep the university leadership informed and involved.

Thank you for your continued support and engagement in this important initiative.

Contact
Budget Office 
512.245.2376

An email was sent on April 2, 2025, to account managers, department heads and department administrative support in regards to the annual budget review process for fiscal year 2026.

Annual Budget Review for Fiscal Year 2026 Memo

Please visit the Annual Budget Review section of our website for further information.  If you need any assistance, please contact us at 512-245-2376 or budget@txstate.edu.

The Office of Budgeting and Financial Analysis has introduced a new report called ZBUD_NOTIFY_RPT to further assist account managers and those who monitor budgets with tracking their overbudget line items based on feedback received from departments. As a complement to the existing ZOVERBUDGET report, this additional report is now available to campus users who have the Z3_FI_FM_DEPT_DISPLAY-Z3 FI-FM: Depart Funds Management Display No restriction role in their profile.

This new report will show you over-expended line items in your budgets and email notifications that were sent out. Similar to the ZOVERBUDGET report, this report provides the line-item account information, the person notified, the date of notification, and the amount overbudget. There are two main differences between the two reports:

(1) the new report includes the date the next level of notification will be sent if the line item is not excluded or cleared, and 

(2) the new report does not show you line items that are overbudget but have been excluded from the notification process. 

Examples of line items that get excluded are faculty adjunct lines in fund 10000500FY, over expended salary lines waiting for payroll corrections where the department asked for exclusions pending resolution, and fringe benefits in funds that pay fringes at a high-level cost center. 

Although all over-expended lines are important to review, prioritizing active and escalating items in the notification process is crucial.  The Budget Office How-To & Reference Documents page provides a detailed training document on the Overbudget Notification Report Instructions [link corrected] which outlines all the columns, how to generate the report, and how to read the output.

If you have any questions or need assistance, please contact the Budget Team at Budget@txstate.edu.

Contact
Office of Budgeting & Financial Analysis
512.245.2376
budget@txstate.edu

In response to the effort to reduce administrative burdens across campus, completing the personnel position funding form for most postings will no longer be required.

 Effective immediately, the Personnel Position Funding Form will now only be required for the following three situations:

•  When the proposed budget is more than what is currently in the position budget. Using the form allows for the identification of where additional funding is coming from and requires the division Vice President’s approval to use the funding source identified; or
• When the proposed funding is coming from another position.  In the justification section, identify the position you are defunding, including the position number and title, as well as the new funding level for that position.  This will allow the division Vice President to assess whether they will approve the defunding of one position for another; or
• You are creating a new position.

 Only under these three situations, the form should be signed by the Vice President within your division, and attached for workflow.  Please note that the Vice President for each division has the discretion to modify internal processes within their division and may continue to require the form in situations other than the three listed above.

You can access the form in the “Forms” Section of our website or via this link  Position/Personnel Funding Approval form.  If you have any questions with the form you can refer to the Instructions for Position/Personnel Funding Approval Form on our website.  You can also contact us at 512-245-2376 or budget@txstate.edu.

Effective the beginning of Fiscal Year 2025, September 1, 2024, the rate charged for administrative overhead will increase from 4 percent to 4.25 percent.  

As a reminder, the university charges administrative overhead to most unrestricted accounts (funds that start with a 2* or 3*).  This charge ensures that the cost of operating the university is shared by all units.  It contributes to the funding for services such as payroll, accounting, purchasing, human resources, and employee benefits.  This change will help offset additional costs incurred due to streamlining processes and centralizing phone bill payments as well as offsetting inflationary pressures so that we can continue to offer these services at existing levels. 

We are still conducting one-on-one training for staff utilizing Microsoft Teams.  Individual training can be scheduled by completing the request for training form: One-on-one Training Request  

Please indicate the type of training and how urgent the training need is.

For additional budget training the SAP Report Fundamentals training class is available online through the Training & Development tile in the SAP Portal.