Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Events including employee families

Per the Controller's Office, under the new Hospitality and Business Expense policies, central views gatherings like department-wide welcome picnics that include families or other large gatherings that include employee families to fall under the Business Expense policy, so family member expenses are not allowable without an exception from the Controller's Office.  If you are planning such an event, let me know so we can request an exception.  DJP

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

New I9 process

To ensure broad dissemination and as an archive, I'm posting a message from CSE's HR Director below.  Best, DJP

Colleagues,
I appreciate your questions and feedback, regarding the I-9 process, during the Administrator’s meeting last week.  
As discussed, in both our meeting and during today’s Payroll Forum, the University of Minnesota is committed to being fully compliant with the University of Minnesota’s business practice, as well as the I-9 federal law.  As a result, I wanted to highlight a few key points to keep in mind:
·         Currently the University’s business practice states that all faculty, staff and student hires must have sections 1 and 2 of their I-9 form completed on or before their first day of employment ("Day 1").
·          Employment will be terminated if the employee is out of compliance with the University’s business practice; specifically,  when Section 1 and/or Section 2 is not complete by the end of the employee's first day of employment.
·         All offer letters and I-9 training materials have new language that will address the University’s commitment to full compliance.
·         Going forward, all employee groups should receive an offer letter of employment.
·         Within CSE, Emily Nelson will be the key contact for the I-9 compliance monitoring done through payroll and I will be the Human Resources key contact.
Attached is our CSE internal business process for I-9 monitoring and a link to the email sent from Kathy Brown, for your reference.  I shared the feedback that we discussed regarding the verbiage and length, and thus far we have been directed to utilize what has been approved.
If you have any additional questions or comments, please contact me at 612-301-1070 or jwisedav@umn.edu.
Thanks much!
Joy

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joy Wise Davis, SPHR 
Director of Human Resources
College of Science & Engineering
University of Minnesota
612-301-1070


Thursday, July 19, 2018

Revised University Policies on Hospitality and Business Expenses

I expect most have already seen this announcement, but the long-awaited policy revisions relating to hospitality and business expenses are now official.  Please see the message below from the University Controller's Office and review the new policies carefully if they relate to your work.  DJP

Controller's Office
The new Business Expenses policy and updated Hospitality & Entertainment of Non-Employees policy have been posted.

The new Business Expenses policy pertains to expenses that involve employees only and the contents of the now-retired Cell Phone and Business Data Plan policy were rolled into this policy.

The Hospitality & Special Expenses policy was renamed to Hospitality & Entertainment of Non-Employees.

WebEx information sessions are open to anyone, though registration is required. 

Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Off-cycle salary request process

Please see the message below announcing the new process for off-cycle salary requests in CSE.  This was also emailed from Joy to administrators on 7/16/18.  DJP

Good afternoon all~

The documents for the new off-cycle process are complete and attached, for your review.  The input form will be used for the following types of adjustments:

·         
Market Adjustments are considered when inequities can be demonstrated relative to the comparable external market.
·         Internal Equity Adjustments are considered when inequities can be demonstrated among unit, college, and/or University employees in comparable job codes and situations.
·         Retention Adjustments are considered when an employee has a competing employment offer. The employee must provide documentation of the competing offer, and the unit must describe the criticality of retaining the employee rather than refilling the position.
·         Job Change Adjustments are considered when an employee’s duties or responsibility level have changed significantly, but not in such a manner as to justify a reclassification.
·         Augmentations are considered when an employee is temporarily performing duties above and outside of their job classification.

For now, the plan is to review off-cycle forms every two weeks, beginning Monday, July 30th.   

If you have a form for review, email it along with the requested materials to, cse-admin@umn.edu no later than noon, the Thursday before the request is to be reviewed. 

Thank you for your support of this new process and please do not hesitate to let Dave or me know if you have any questions.

​Dave and Joy​


Business process

Request template (open link and then download to Excel to use the template)

Thursday, June 14, 2018

Finance policies on 30-day review

If you haven't already seen it, please review the message below from the Controller's Office.  There are some big changes in the policies.  DJP

Controller's Office
The new Business Expenses policy and changes made to the policy Hospitality & Entertainment of Non-Employees policy are up for 30 day review.

The new Business Expenses policy pertains to expenses that involve employees only. The Cell Phone and Business Data Plan policy will be retired, since its contents have been rolled into the Business Expenses policy. The Hospitality & Special Expenses policy has been renamed to Hospitality & Entertainment of Non-Employees and all employee related expenses moved to the new Business Expense policy.

Comments are due by July 5, 2018. To view these policies visit the Policy website:https://policy.umn.edu/policies-under-review

Information Sessions

Brown bag information sessions about these policies have been scheduled for after the review period and are open to anyone who wishes to attend, though registration is required. A WebEx attendance option is available. 
Additional sessions will be scheduled if needed and announced via the RRC-L, EFS Cluster Director, and FSUN General Membership listservs.

Monday, June 4, 2018

Budget entry deadline reminder

This is a reminder that budgets are due to be submitted to the Dean's Office in EFS by this Thursday morning (6/7).  I've pasted the original message below.  Thanks, DJP



The Budget Office recently released the FY19 budget entry instructions:

http://finance.umn.edu/Budget_FY2019/2018-03-14_FY19FinalBudgetEntryInstructions.pdf

In addition, the link below is to a CSE budget entry best practices document, which has been expanded from last year's version.  Please review it and follow the guidance.  For FY19, we will be reviewing departmental budget details after budgets are submitted to the college.  In cases where the best practice guidance does not meet your needs, please discuss with Cathy Burke in advance.

CSE budget entry best practices:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=17Ns2roifYPfQwDzDcvFnpySNq-8aMNh2

Budgets are due to be submitted in EFS to the Dean's Office by 8AM Thursday, June 7th, 2018.  

Monday, March 26, 2018

CSE guidance on child accounts

A group of administrators worked with the Dean's Office to draft a collegiate statement regarding the use of child accounts in the college.  The draft language was circulated to all administrators for comment in January.  Now that the Finance blog is back up to memorialize this, CSE's approach to the use of child accounts is:

For sponsored projects involving co-investigators from more than one academic department, unless the involved department heads approve otherwise, child accounts should be established in each department to ensure that ICR is properly credited, that effort is well-managed, that reporting is robust, and so the administration of cross-departmental projects is as transparent as possible.  In addition, it is CSE's best practice to establish the resource division between departments at the PRF stage.  When multiple departments are involved, it is the responsibility of the administering department to adequately communicate with staff in other involved departments throughout the pre- and post-award processes.

Friday, March 23, 2018

Raise dates for 9-month employees

The University now requires CSE to have a consistent college-wide approach to raise implementation for each employee class.  After consulting several central offices including OHR, SPA, SFR, and the Tax Office, and after seeking input from departments, the following policy is effective immediately. 

Summer salary drawn after the start of the new fiscal year will be paid at a compensation rate that incorporates the annual merit increase, promotional increments, and most other pay changes that are effective at the start of the next academic year.

As is already collegiate policy, annual graduate assistant pay rate changes are implemented at the start of the academic year with summer salary all paid at the compensation rate of the prior fiscal year.

This is a collegiate policy, and departments no longer have flexibility in this area.  The majority of CSE's departments are already using this approach.  If you are not, please alter your internal processes to match this policy.

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

FY18 commitment deadlines

Like last year, CSE will have deadlines for requesting Dean's Office commitment transfers, so the college can appropriately plan cash flows as year end approaches.  For Dean's Office commitments to startup funds, the deadline for sending requests will be April 27.  For most other commitments, the deadline will be May 11. 

The exceptions to the May 11 deadline are those commitments that cannot be done until period 13 because a calculation requires full-year data, e.g., commitments to return a percentage of ICR generated.  Please let Cathy Burke know if you have any questions. 

Monday, March 19, 2018

FY19 Budget Entry

The Budget Office recently released the FY19 budget entry instructions: 

http://finance.umn.edu/Budget_FY2019/2018-03-14_FY19FinalBudgetEntryInstructions.pdf

In addition, the link below is to a CSE budget entry best practices document, which has been expanded from last year's version.  Please review it and follow the guidance.  For FY19, we will be reviewing departmental budget details after budgets are submitted to the college.  In cases where the best practice guidance does not meet your needs, please discuss with Cathy Burke in advance. 

CSE budget entry best practices:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=17Ns2roifYPfQwDzDcvFnpySNq-8aMNh2

Budgets are due to be submitted in EFS to the Dean's Office by 8AM Thursday, June 7th, 2018.  

Thursday, March 15, 2018

The CSE Finance Blog is Back

Due to technical difficulties, the finance blog has been on hiatus for several months.  It is fixed, and you will start seeing content again soon.  The URL for the blog is below, and past posts remain on the blog.  The distribution list had to be rebuilt from scratch without the benefit of access to the old subscriber list.  If you received this post as an email, then you are already signed up and need to take no further action. 

http://finance.blog.cse.umn.edu/