Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting

Overview

Yale utilizes an “all funds, full cost” approach to budgeting in order to ensure excellent stewardship of Yale’s mission and resources.  This means that the anticipated cost of every program, department, and activity has a source of funding (general appropriations, gifts, grant, etc.) identified during the planning process, and that every fund is included in the planning process. The University’s annual planning and budgeting process is led by the Planning and Budgeting group within the Division of Finance. The Provost, as chief budgetary officer for the University, has the institutional responsibility for the allocation of resources.

Every unit on campus is part of one of 43 “target units” that submit proposed budgets each February. The Provost and Vice President for Finance and Business Operations conduct planning meetings with each of the 43 target units throughout the spring to discuss and clarify plans for the next year and for the long-term. The Provost and Vice President then present an annual all-funds operating and capital budget to the President and the Yale Corporation for approval in May. Deans, Directors, Chairs and Lead Administrators have responsibility for ensuring that funds are expended in a manner consistent with the annual budget as approved by the Corporation.

The University uses the Yale Budget Tool (YBT) to build and monitor budgets. Units create “labor plans”, “grant plans” and “financial plans” to capture all planned spending. Once budget workbooks are populated at the department and program level, YBT enables managers to have various views of both detailed and aggregate budgets to assist with the planning process and monitoring process. YBT rolls-up all of the budget workbooks into one of the 43 target units, which in turn are aggregated into a single University budget. Using YBT, each of the target units submits quarterly forecasts and a year-end actual to budget variance analysis in order to properly monitor Yale’s financial resources and plans.