The Budget Control chapter provides an overview of Commitment Control (or KK) at the Statewide Appropriation, Segregation, and Project level of detail.

BUDGET PROCESS

After appropriations, which are statutory authorizations to spend for specific purposes, become law, the State Comptroller will establish appropriation control records based on the enacted State budget, along with the segregation records. These records are at the bill copy level of detail and assure that no more than the amount authorized for agency administered programs is spent.

COMMITMENT CONTROL

The sections within this chapter explain various Commitment Control topics. Within Commitment Control (KK), control budgets can be created, adjusted, and transferred. Budget journals allow for the establishment of appropriation, segregation and project budgets and budget transfer journals allow for the interchange, transfer, or suballocation of budget authority within, and between State agencies. Statewide KK also enforces spending against these control budgets. Transactions entered into SFS, such as vouchers and journal entries, proceed through a budget checking process that prevents the posting of a transaction when it exceeds the available budget authority.

Budgetary control is also executed when establishing and transacting against Federal grants. Each Federal grant will have its own project budget that will ensure that expenditures do not exceed the available Federal funds. The Project Parent is equivalent to the billing amount for the Federal Grant Award, and the Project Child is the funding allocation to specific project activities. See Chapter XIX, Section 2.B Project Information and Budget Control for additional information on Federal grant Budget Control and set up using the Project Guide.

For Non-Onboarding agencies, agencies will establish a Federal Grant in SFS via the Project and Federal Grant Request guides based upon the federal Grant Award Document or Notice (GAD) received from the federal awarding agency, which must be attached to the customer contract in SFS. See Chapter IX, Section 3 - Establish & Maintain Federal Grants in SFS for Non-Onboarding Agencies and Chapter XIX, Section 2 Establishing a Project using the Project Guide of this Guide for more information.

The Onboarding agencies will establish a Federal Grant in SFS based on the GAD received from the federal awarding agency, which contains all the required information that must be entered into the SFS. See Chapter IX, Section 4 - Establish & Maintain Federal Grants in SFS for Onboarding Agencies and Chapter XIX, Section 2 Establishing a Project using the Project of this Guide for more information.

The agencies will create, approve and post the Budget Journal to create the Project Child Budget. The “generate parent” functionality will create the Project Parent Budget when the Project Child Budget is posted.

Effective October 1, 2015, some significant changes to the way agencies segregate, transfer, suballocate, etc. in the Commitment Control module were implemented.

• Agencies no longer create budget journal or budget transfer journals using KK_APPROP due to the use of the Generate Parent functionality. Benefits of Generate Parent include:

  • Budgeting impact associated with a child level budget journal entry will automatically be reflected at all levels above the specified originating child budget entry level (e.g. will align appropriations and segregations).

  • Saves time because budget maintenance can be done at the lowest child level and the system automatically handles the budget impacts associated with each of the higher parent budget levels.

  • Automatic creation/updating of parent budget(s) based upon the originating journal, which is a child level budget. Depending on the type of entry, multiple parent budgets are updated; thereby eliminating the current 3 or 5 step process.

• In order to keep the Appropriation and Segregation Ledgers aligned, all appropriations will be 100% segregated. For each appropriation there may be up to two segregations – an ‘Available’ segregation which can be charged on financial transactions and a ‘Reserve’ segregation which cannot. Budget journal entries against either the Available or Reserve segregation will impact the appropriation. Amounts budgeted to the Reserve segregation are at DOB’s discretion only. Reserve segregations will carry over year to year until they are designated as available by DOB or the appropriation lapses.

• During conversion on October 1, 2015, all 2015-16 appropriations were fully segregated in the available segregation and all 2014-15 and prior active appropriations became fully segregated by converting any unallocated amount to a reserve segregation. Lapsed appropriations at March 31, 2015 remained at current levels even if not fully segregated.

• Pre-encumbrance functionality will be used to budget check requisitions and will now impact the available budget for all statewide budget definitions.

• The format of the Budget Reference chartfield will vary depending upon the budget ledger and use.

  • The format of Budget Reference on active appropriations will be ‘A’ followed by the fiscal year (e.g. A201516). The format for lapsed appropriations at March 31, 2015 will remain as the fiscal year e.g. 2014-15). The appropriation budget reference will be used by agencies when viewing SFS reports or running a Budget Overview.

  • The format of the Budget Reference on the active segregations will vary based upon whether the segregation is for the “Available’ or ‘Reserve’ segregation.

    • The format for the ‘Available’ segregation will be the fiscal year (e.g. 2015-16). The format for lapsed segregations at March 31, 2105 will remain as the fiscal year (e.g. 2013-14). The Segregation budget reference will be used by agencies when viewing SFS reports or running a Budget Overview.

    • The format for the ‘Reserve’ segregation will be ‘R’ followed by the fiscal year (e.g. R201516). Reserve segregations will not be available for transactional use.

  • The format of Budget Reference on financial transactions will remain as the fiscal year (e.g. 2015-16).

BUDGET LEDGER GROUPS

Guide to Financial Operations

REV. 07/12/2022