Budgeting

The Chancellor delegates his authority to expend funds to specified administrative officials by approving the annual campus budget; these administrative officials may redelegate this authority to other administrative officials. Principal investigators, for example, are delegated responsibility for the design, implementation, and management of specific research grants and contracts, but they may delegate responsibility for financial management to their departmental business officers.

Administrative officials are required to efficiently manage resources and effectively mitigate risks to attain program objectives while maintaining a sound financial condition and compliance with applicable laws and regulations. While administrative officials may delegate authority, they continue to be accountable. Specifically, they retain overall responsibility for:

Establishing an attainable, reasonable, and realistic budget for each program or activity. The budget must reflect all funding sources, revenue estimates, major expenditures by category, assumptions and forecasting methods used, significant changes in current activities, and contingency plans;
Comparing budget to actual results on a regular (monthly) basis to ensure that unnecessary costs are being avoided and that transactions are adequately supported;
Determining the cause of variances and taking corrective action when actual financial results vary significantly from the budget; and
Evaluating the costs and benefits of new activities or changes to existing programs or activities before initiating the change.

The Campus Budget Office (http://budget.berkeley.edu/) provides campus executive management with objective, accurate and timely information and analyses to inform central decision-making and strategic planning processes. The Campus Budget Office is responsible for ensuring that campus budgetary policy and practice conform to federal, state, and University regulations. The Campus Budget Office works with campus academic and administrative units in guiding the annual budgetary process, assessing ongoing budget and planning issues, and establishing and monitoring controls over fund allocations. It provides decision support through cost benefit analysis, institutional research, and data reporting, analyzing, and forecasting.