Budget Update and New Vacant Position Salary Procedure

As you are all aware, July began the new fiscal (budget) year for the College of Charleston. The Board of Trustees has met and approved the budget for fiscal year 2003-2004. Included in that budget is the continuation of the 4th Century Initiative implementation. Examples of associated funding are new faculty and staff lines, student employment funds, financial aid, student / faculty research, and operating funds for the new faculty lines. Another item was a 1.5% cut to the recurring operating budgets of each account. These items are reflected in your budget currently available on the FRS system. Additionally, the board approved a pay increase about which you have already received information. Once the funding for the pay increase has been allocated to each individual account, a final approved budget will be distributed to each department.

Administratively, there were a few policies put in place last year that have been carried forward into the new fiscal year. These include restrictions on travel; purchases in excess of $750; and limiting the filling of vacant positions to those deemed “essential”. An additional policy put in effect for the new year is the sweeping of vacant personnel funds from the individual departments to a central account. These are funds resulting from vacant classified or unclassified positions. It does not include the removal of any temporary or student funding. Under this policy, if a position becomes vacant, any funding not having been earned by the employee vacating the position will be removed, on a non-recurring basis, from the account. If the department is allowed to later fill the vacancy with a permanent employee, the funding needed for that employee will be calculated and returned to the department. Under current policy, a department is allowed to fill a vacant position not deemed “essential” with a temporary or student employee. Attached you will find a form that should be used to request the return of a portion of the swept vacancy funds in order to fund the temporary or student employee filling the vacant position.

This new policy does not affect the permanent recurring budget or the allocation of lines to the department. Rather, these funding adjustments are non-recurring and affect the budget only in the current year.

A copy of this message, as well as the form, will be posted on the web at http://payroll.cofc.edu/ in the next few days. Please contact the Budget Office (Brenda Burbage @ 3-5879), or me, if you have any questions regarding the process or the use of the form .

Samuel B. Jones
Director of Budgeting & Payroll Services
College of Charleston
66 George Street
Charleston, SC 29424
(843) 953-6367
Fax: (843) 953-6763

jonessa@cofc.edu