About the Budget Office

The Budget Office of The University of Texas at Austin facilitates the optimal use of university financial resources and provides timely, useful budget information to the University community and its constituents.

Interim Budget Director, Megan Meadows, directs the Budget Office in the following primary functions:

• Prepare the biennial Legislative Appropriations Request (LAR).
• Prepare the University annual operating budget, including all supporting schedules.
• Daily operations include maintaining revised budget by processing approved budget changes throughout the year.
• Participate in the strategic planning process on budget-related matters.
• Coordinate budget systems and procedures with Payroll, Human Resource Services, Accounting and Financial Management, and other applicable departments.
• Prepare various financial tables, reports, comparisons, and impact studies on proposed and actual legislation.

Goals and Objectives:

Goal 1: Resource Management and Reporting

Objective 1 - Develop budgets that control funding for major capital, repair and renovation, and construction projects.
Objective 2 - Present budget data in a transparent format that is widely accessible to the University community and its constituents.
Objective 3 - Provide accurate and prompt reports and information to the University community regarding budgetary and other selected financial reports.
Objective 4 - Prepare the annual operating budget for approval by the Board of Regents.
Objective 5 - Prepare the biennial Legislative Appropriation Request and all supporting documents and requests for the legislative session.
Objective 6 - Implement and maintain the University's annual operating budget and handle budget adjustments throughout the year.

Goal 2: Planning

Objective 1 - Provide timely and transparent forecast information (single scenario with fixed assumptions).
Objective 2 - Develop financial models to enable decision-makers to compare and analyze multiple scenarios with variable assumptions.

Goal 3: Innovation-Continual improvement in methodologies and increase resource availability

Objective 1 - Optimize long-term financing opportunities for capital projects.
Objective 2 - Model the cash flow of multi-year projects.
Objective 3 - Standardize data collection used in tuition modeling and reporting requirements.
Objective 4 - Remove line items from the budget document.
Objective 5 - Continue to automate the budget process and enhance technology offerings.
Objective 6 - Minimize the use of external databases/spreadsheets in analyzing data.
Objective 7 - Participate in and support the development of non-financial data warehouse information to assist academic units in decision-making.