Lab Fee Background
The current year's lab fee revenue budget is based upon a 2-year historical average. Based upon this expected revenue the University distributes funds to be spent according to:
- 10% Catasrophic Fund
- 15% Reserve with VP Academic Affairs
- 75% Departmental Budgets
The 10% allocated to the Catastrophic Fund is placed in an investment with the proceeds used for catastropic expenditures by the labs, as determined by the Vice President of Academic Affairs and Deans. Any department lab can use these funds.
The 15% that is reserved with the VPs can return to the departments once spring enrollments have been determined and the department requests the funds. The request should be sent to the deans, Vice President of Academic Affairs and academic liaison in Financial Affairs. It can be requested via email.
The 75% is given to the departments to spend effective June 1. Once in the Fall and once in the Spring semesters, Financial Affairs compares the lab's actual/projected revenue to the budgeted revenue. Based upon the comparison, an adjustment will be made to give the department more funds to spend if there is additional revenue or to take away funds from the department if there is less revenue. As part of this comparison, data will be obtained from the Registrar that outlines, course-by-course, section-by-section, the students enrolled or majoring in the discipline. Departments should review this analysis to determine if there are any discrepancies with their records.
If a department wants to request an increase, decrease, addition or deletion of a lab fee, the department should inform the Dean, VP of Academic Affairs and Financial Affairs by November in time for the BAC process.
In order to track lab fee monies, you should be aware of the following:
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All lab fee monies must remain in 1154 in your organization code. Banner will give you an error if you try to move money between 1154 to 1100.
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For those department that have fee monies in an undergraduate budget as well as a graduate budget, you cannot move monies between the different organization codes, e.g.1154-214010 to 1154-234010. Moving money between the two organization codes will make it difficult and more time consuming to analyze your lab fees when Financial Affairs reviews them in the fall and spring.
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Generally, at the beginning of the year, all lab fee monies were put into 7103 instructional supplies, unless requested otherwise.
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If you wish to spend the money in a line other than 7103, you can do so by making a budget adjustment online into any valid account.
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Budget adjustments should be made prior to placing an order with Information Technology or purchasing in order to prevent NSF conditions.
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Purchase orders can be placed with multiple budget numbers and varying amounts for each budget. You must specify how much money you want to use from each budget on the requisition, e.g. Undergraduate Biology 1154-214010-7103 $100, Graduate Chemistry 1154-234010-7103 $500.
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Salary lines funded by lab fee revenue are recorded in 1254 (instead of the regular 1200 Salary Fund).