This year’s budget carry forward process for open encumbrances will be similar to last year. Please remember that purchase orders (POs) and service agreements (SAs) cannot be carried forward unless they are encumbered. To establish an encumbrance that is eligible for carry forward for this fiscal year, a purchase requisition must have been submitted to Purchasing by May 18, 2018 (see attached email from Purchasing).
All contracts (Ks), SAs, and POs will be thoroughly reviewed. In order to be approved for carry forward, requests must include appropriate and sufficient justification to substantiate the need to carry forward the budget. Final approval for all carry forward requests will be determined by Finance and the City Manager.
Process Reminders & Due Date:
- Contracts are automatically carried forward unless the department specifically requests otherwise. If a department requests that a contract not be carried forward, it is their responsibility to ensure all other departments that are part of the contract are fully aware of the request and agree that it should not be carried forward.
- Please ensure requests are submitted with accurate instrument numbers. Having a typo in the requested PO/SA number will prevent the instrument from being carried forward. If a carry forward is missed due to this type of error, it will be the responsibility of the requesting department to take a budget adjustment on their own at a later date if the funds are still needed.
- All POs/SAs requested for encumbrance carryforward must have spending by August 31, 2018. If spending by this date is not feasible, justification is required. Finance will be checking each encumbrance before approving budget carry forward.
- Multi-year CIPs will be automatically carried forward. In the future, inactive CIPs will be evaluated at year-end each year to determine whether continued carry forward is appropriate. More information on this process will be rolled out next year.
- Look for a separate email on Purchasing’s Encumbrance Review process in July.
- Vendors must be correctly identified (no “Vendor TBD” allowed).
- Budget carry forward request forms and detailed process instructions will be made available and emailed to Departments August 13, 2018
- DUE DATE: All carry forward request forms are due by August 24, 2018. Please forward completed requests to: [email protected].
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact the Budget Team.