SP 8-61a
EFFECTIVE: November 1, 2005
REFERENCE: State Controller’s Office Fiscal Rule 1-8; Board Policy on Delegation of Signature Authority, BP 8-60; System President’s Procedure on Delegation of Signature Authority, SP 8-60b
APPROVED:
/ Nancy J. McCallin /
Nancy J. McCallin, Ph.D.
System President
This policy applies to the System Office.
Rule 1-8 of the State Controller’s Fiscal Rules requires the State Board for Community Colleges and Occupational Education (the “Board”) to implement internal accounting and administrative controls which reasonably assure financial transactions are accurate, reliable, and conform to State Fiscal Rules. The Board has charged the Colorado Community College System (the “System”) President with this responsibility.
System operations are organized into cost centers that develop and execute strategic and tactical plans to carry out the System’s mission and achieve its objectives. These units obtain and utilize resources, the financial impact of which is accumulated and summarized in the System’s financial records. Financial records are an important management tool, used to both measure and monitor the acquisition and use of resources for operations.
The following establishes the roles and responsibilities of management involved in System operations, from a fiscal perspective. Successful execution of these roles and responsibilities will ensure the monetary impact of System operations is planned, controlled, and accurately accounted for in the System’s financial records. Accordingly, this policy applies to all funds, including appropriated, generated, awarded, donated, or otherwise received or spent by the System from any source or for any purpose.
The following definitions have been developed to aid in understanding and implementing this policy.
Budget – a set of financial expectations (usually revenues and/or expenditures) for a given fiscal period.
Cost Center – the lowest level of operations at which financial transactions are tracked distinctly, requiring a unique identifier (organization code) in the general ledger. A cost center may be a department, a project, or any other activity that incurs financial transactions and includes activities funded by any source, general funds or other. Multiple cost centers may be under the control of a single cost center manager however, only one cost center manager should be responsible for any one cost center.
Contact Person – the employee designated by the cost center manager to accomplish the day-to-day financial transactions of a cost center.
Cost Center Manager – an employee identified as programmatically responsible and accountable for the activities within a cost center. The cost center manager may be the same as the contact person. Illustrative examples of contact person, cost center manager and their cost centers include:
Cost center Contact person Cost center manager
Educational Grant X Admin Assist Program Manager
Educational Grant Y Accounting Tech I Program Manager
Training operations Training Coordinator Training Coordinator
Functional or department manager – an employee who has administrative and fiscal oversight for cost center managers and their assigned cost centers. The cost center manager should report administratively to and be held accountable by the function or department manger. Illustrative examples of functional or department managers are as follows:
Cost center Cost center manager Functional manager
Purchasing Assistant Controller Controller
Educational Grant X Program Manager Director of Ed Services
Executive or Vice President Level – an employee who has administrative and fiscal oversight for functional managers and their assigned cost centers. The executive or vice president level is tasked with managing a functional area and reports directly to the president. Illustrative examples include the vice president for finance and administration and the director of strategic development.
Functional Manager Executive Level
Controller Vice President for Finance & Administration
Director of Human Resources Vice President for Legal Affairs
Financial System – the System’s official financial records, used to record all System financial transactions and prepare the System’s financial statements.
Fiscal Misconduct – intentional or unintentional noncompliance with State Fiscal Rules, Procurement Code, System or College policy and procedures and/or conduct that results in a loss or potential loss of monies or other assets.
The functional or department manager plays a key role in ensuring cost centers are effectively managed. The functional or department manager:
The cost center manager plays a key role in ensuring the fiscal condition of his/her cost center is accurate, complete, and does not adversely impact the System. The review of the monthly financial report serves as a mechanism to detect whether fraud, errors, and omissions have occurred. For some transactions, this review may provide the only way such fraud, errors, and omissions may be detected.
Contact persons are responsible for carrying out fiscal duties as designated by the cost center manager. Such duties shall include the timely presentation of materials required to process and record financial transactions in accordance with applicable laws, regulations, and System policies.
The College and System controllers serve as a resource to cost centers by providing information to assist the cost centers in accomplishing their fiscal responsibilities.
The controllers are not responsible for reviewing day to day transactions. Instead, the Controllers will conduct reviews of summarized financial information to identify material variations in the financial data. However, the College and System office controllers should conduct detail reviews of financial transactions as they deem necessary to assess whether financial transactions conform to generally accepted accounting principles and applicable laws, rules, and regulations.
When a controller notes the need to correct the recording of any financial transactions to comply with generally accepted accounting principles or applicable law, regulation, or system policy, the controller is responsible for informing the cost center manager of the need to make such corrections. If the necessary correction is not initiated by the cost center manager and received by the controller’s office within two weeks of notice, the controller is authorized to make the correcting entry and shall notify both the functional or department manager and cost center manager of the correction(s) made.
While such reviews and corrections may be accomplished by the controllers, these activities do not relieve the cost center manager of their responsibilities set forth in Section 3.