Harvard Law School
Cambridge · Massachusetts · 02138SCOTT SARIAN TEL. (617) 495-4240
Director, Financial Planning and Analysis FAX (617) 495-4422
ssarian@law.harvard.edu
November 12, 2015
To: Administrative Directors and Departments
CC: Fran McCrossan
Matt Gruber
Kevin Moody
Lisa Dealy
Subject: FY17 Budget Letter
The following memo outlines the FY17 Budget Process and provides a description of the budget request of each department. All departments should complete their budget entry in HUBS and email the completed Executive Summary to Matt Gruber, Scott Sarian and Lisa Dealy, by Friday, January 22, 2016.
The FY17 budget process key timeline:
BUDGET ITEM / DELIVERY DATEFY17 Budget Letter, Executive Summary Request and HUBS Quick Reference Guide sent to departments.
HUBS Quick Reference Guide can also be accessed in the budget section of the Financial Office Website: http://law.harvard.edu/about/administration/financial/budgets.html / Already distributed (Nov. 10)
FY17 Estimated Endowment Distributions / Already published in HUBS
Summary Non-Roster Targets for departments provided in HUBS. This is the department’s pre-approved budget. Non-Roster Target encompasses all expenses that exclude exempt and non-exempt base compensation and fringe (most easily visible in the FRBC027a_Budget_Analysis_Detail HUBS report) / Already published in HUBS
First round of FY16 Plan Working reforecast / FY17 budget submissions completed in HUBS (for those budgeters who volunteered to be part of Wave 1) / December 23, 2015
All remaining FY16 Plan Working reforecast / FY17 budget submissions completed in HUBS (for those budgeters not in Wave 1) / Friday, January 15, 2016
Department access to HUBS Plan Working CLOSED. After this date, departments will not be able to make updates to FY17 Plan Working in HUBS / Friday, January 15, 2016 – end of day
Executive Summary Request due to the Financial Office (submit to Matt and Scott in Finance, and Lisa Dealy in OCP) / Friday, January 22, 2016
Departmental Roster provided in HUBS (employees, FTE, compensation before FY17 increase, fringe, and coding). Depts and Finance will review rosters for accuracy. / Week of January 25, 2016
Departmental budget meetings / Mid-late February with departments, as needed
Plan Working is currently open and available for budgeting. Targets have been published to Departments via the University Budget tool (HUBS) as of November 10th. The Target can be considered your department’s pre-approved budget amount. (Please see below for more information on the FY17 targets.) Departments may also submit requests for incremental funding which will be provided to the Dean for her review. As HLS continues to operate in a constrained financial environment with an emphasis on fiscal discipline, please be aware that in the current environment it is unlikely that many requests will be approved.
· Roster amounts: Current department employee rosters will be loaded into HUBS, to be finalized during the budget process with communication between each department, HR and Finance. All employees are rolled forward into FY17 using their FY16 compensation rates and will be updated later this year.
o Exempt employees will be eligible for a bonus pool and/or performance based compensation increase (TBD in Spring 2016).
o Non-exempt employees will be increased based on the approved union contract. Similar to FY16, the Finance Office will populate a placeholder in object code 6060 for the estimated non-exempt increase. Related fringe will be reflected in object code 6270.
· Fringe rates for FY17 are not yet finalized and subject to change; the latest guidance we have received is as follows:
o Exempt – 32.3%
o Non-exempt – 45.8%
o Temp – 8.0%
o Vacation: Exempt 10.4%; Non-exempt 10.4%
PLEASE NOTE: These rates likely will change, and may not be finalized in the immediate future. HUBS will update the budgeted fringe amounts automatically when fringe rates are finalized.
· Endowment Payouts: FY17 Endowment payouts are 4% higher than FY16 payout amounts.
The budget submission consists of three items:
(1) Executive Summary Request
Please use the attached Executive Summary Template which will be aggregated and provided to the Dean. Incremental funding requests, if applicable, should be included in this document.
(2) Budget Request Excel Template
If any incremental budget additions have been requested, please complete the Budget Request template.
(3) FY16 Plan Working and FY17 Budget Submission (HUBS)
HUBS currently contains your FY16 budget with detailed FTE information in the “Plan-Working” instance. Please update the non-FTE data to best reflect your projected results for the year, given the six months of actual data experienced and your expectations for the next six months.
The FY17 non-FTE target reflecting all non-FTE expenses has been populated on November 10th. This can be found in the “Target” instance, most easily visible in the “FRBC 027A Budget Analysis Detail”. Please enter data in the FY17 “Plan-Working” to create a budget. Your submission should include a detailed FY17 budget in the “Plan-Working” instance that meets the Target. After completion of budget submissions of non-roster data, HUBS will be populated with detailed FTE data on the week of January 25th, reflecting your preliminary roster for the coming year.
NOTE ON TARGETS: The FY17 targets will represent an increase of 2.0% over the FY16 budget targets. This target increase is slightly above the Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) of 1.9% for the past 12 months, typically used by the University to plan increases and monitor inflationary growth. The 2.0% target increase amount should be budgeted for expenses in line with the mission of the department, and is not intended as a method to increase staff.
Please do not submit a budget that exceeds your budget Target. If additional resources are required either to better perform existing activities or to add new activities, please submit these as special budget requests as part of the Executive Summary Request with your budget submission, and include them in the Budget Request Template. We will compile the requests and present them to the Dean. Be aware it will be difficult to fund special requests.
Please bear in mind that the overall revenue model for the school anticipates very modest growth in the coming years (in the form of endowment distribution increases and tuition rate increases). Programmatic increases of a material amount in one area need to be accommodated by savings or efficiencies in other areas.
2