Glossary

Appropriation: An amount of money for a particular purpose that an agency is authorized to spend during a fiscal year. In Kansas, the entire amount is available at the start of the fiscal year. Allotments to agencies during the fiscal year are authorized only in emergencies.
Biennial Budget: A budget which plans revenues and expenditures for the two forthcoming fiscal years, rather than one year. The 1994 Legislature enacted legislation requiring 20 fee-funded agencies to submit biennial budgets beginning on September 15, 1994, for FY 1996 and FY 1997. All other agencies including K-State submit annual requests.
Budget: A plan of operation, including an estimate of proposed expenditures and the means to finance them, to meet the needs of the public.
Capital Improvements: Projects involving new construction, remodeling, rehabilitation and repair, razing, and the principal portion of debt service for a capital expense. The interest portion of the debt is an operating expense.
Classified Temporary Positions: An appointment not exceeding 999 hours of employment in a 12-month period. Temporary positions do not count toward the agency's FTE count. Employees in these positions do not generally receive fringe benefits.
Deferred Maintenance: Curable physical deterioration that should be corrected immediately, although work has not commenced; denotes the need for immediate expenditures, but does not necessarily suggest inadequate maintenance in the past (The Dictionary of Real Estate Appraisal, Third Edition).
Enhancements: The incremental increase in expenditures or positions, or both, to expand a service or provide a new one.
Expenditure: The actual payment of money out of any state fund or the commitment to pay in the form of an encumbrance.
Expenditure Limitation: A limitation placed on the expenditures that may be made from a special revenue fund.
Expenditures, Non-Reportable: Disbursements that do not result in net reductions of statewide assets. An example is a refund, where an agency pays for an item but is reimbursed later. Also considered non-reportable are certain "off budget" expenditures, most of which occur in the Department of Administration. For example, dollars are spent in many state agencies' budgets for printing services provided by the Division of Printing. Those same dollars are spent again for the salaries, paper supplies, utilities equipment, debt service and other operating costs of the Printing Plant. To avoid reporting expenditures twice, the agencies' printing costs are treated as reportable and the Printing Plant's expenses are non-reportable, or "off budget."
Fiscal Year: A 12-month period beginning July 1 and ending June 30 of the following year that is used as the state budget, accounting, and appropriation period.
Fringe Benefits: State expenditures for retirement, social security, workers compensation, unemployment insurance, state leave payment assessment upon retirement (including sick and annual leave), and group health insurance as employee fringe benefits.
Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) Positions: State employee positions that are permanent and either full-time or part-time but mathematically equated to full-time, e.g., two half-time positions equal one full- time position. Limited term positions are included in the FTE count. Teaching positions contracted for nine or more months are considered 1.0 FTE position.
Functions of Government: The six classifications into which similar agencies are grouped to reflect the basic purposes of state government: General Government, Human Resources, Education, Public Safety, Agriculture and Natural Resources, and Transportation (see the Primer).
Fund: A fund is a basic unit of classification in both the budget process and the accounting system for agency monies. Fund names and numbers are included in the Division of Accounts and Reports' Central Chart of Accounts, which lists every active fund by agency.
General Use Funding: Refers to those funds that can be used to provide general financial support for campus operations as defined by the State. Includes State General Fund appropriations (sources 0003, 0170, 1003, 1020, 1030, 5003, 5013), General Fees Fund revenues (primarily tuition income--sources 2000, 2002 and 5500), Economic Development Initiative Fund (source 1900), certain federal appropriated funds (sources 1300, 1321, 1322 and 1323), VMC Hospital & Diagnostic funds (source 5300), and interest on certain investments (source 7200).
Holiday Pay: Payments to employees working on a legal holiday, such as certain personnel in correctional facilities or state hospitals, who receive additional compensation at the rate of one and one-half times the regular rate of pay. The additional pay may be given in the form of wages or compensatory time credits.
Lapse: That portion of an appropriation not spent or reappropriated. A lapsed appropriation reverts to the fund from which it was made and becomes part of the unappropriated balance. State General Fund appropriations automatically lapse at the end of a fiscal year unless specific authorization provides for the carryover of unexpended funds.
Line-Item Appropriation: An appropriation of funds made by the Legislature for a specific purpose. The purpose could be limited to a specific item, such as equipment, or more generally to a category of expenditure or a program.
Longevity: Bonus payments made to eligible classified employees or non-judicial personnel based on $50 per year of service times the number of years of state service. Minimum eligibility is ten years of state service, and the maximum payment is $1,250, or 25 years of service.
Multi-Year Appropriation: A legislative authorization to expend funds that provides funding for more than one fiscal year.
Non-Expense Item: This is an expenditure of funds that has no budgetary implications--for example, an expense incurred from the purchase of supplies for which an agency is subsequently reimbursed. The amount is shown as a "non-expense" to acknowledge the transaction, but it is not included in an agency's expenditure totals to avoid overstating the true cost of government services.
Overtime Pay: Pay or compensatory time credits at a time and a half rate for hours worked over the maximum number of hours required in a work period. A work period may vary depending on the type of position. A normal work period is 40 hours for one work week. However, law enforcement and firefighters have different work period requirements.
Performance Budgeting: A budgeting process that uses strategic plans and performance measures to distribute available financial resources. Outcome measures gauge the ultimate effect of programs on the problems or conditions they are intended to affect. Output measures indicate the level of resource input or intermediate agency work effort. Efficiency measures compare input to output.
Position Classification Actions: An "individual position" action, approved by Personnel Services, to change the classification from an existing class to a different one at the same or a different pay grade or a "classification study" action to redefine the work in a class or a class series, reassign pay grades, or establish new classes at the same or a different pay grade.
Program: A set of related operations that follows a planned course of action to achieve a specified purpose and set of objectives. Programs classify agency services and provide a framework for resource allocation decisions.
Reappropriation: Funds remaining unexpended at the end of the current fiscal year that are carried over to the next fiscal year. Expenditures that can be made by an agency from such reappropriated funds may or may not be limited.
Restricted Use Funding: Funds that must be used in a manner consistent with conditions attached to the receipt of the funds. Examples are parking fees, student union fees, federal research grants and income generated by campus revenue-producing activities.
Shift Differential: An additional amount per hour paid to certain classified employees who work shifts other than the normal day shift. Because this rate is established by regulation, budgeted increases to implement a salary plan are not applied to the amount budgeted for this purpose.
Shrinkage: The difference, expressed as a percentage, between the cost of fully funding salaries and wages in a budget, assuming all positions are filled all the time, and actual salary costs, taking vacancies into account. Also called "turnover," it is generally expressed as a percentage.
Supplemental Appropriation: An appropriation made to finance the operations of state government during the current fiscal year in addition to regular appropriations already approved. Supplemental appropriations are considered where a shortage of funds is anticipated as a result of an emergency or unforeseen occurrence.
Total Positions: The sum of FTE positions and Unclassified Temporary positions, representing a complete reporting of positions constituting the state workforce.
Transfer (Demand): Funds transferred annually from the State General Fund to specified expenditure accounts under the authority of laws other than appropriation acts. Examples are transfers to the Local Ad Valorem Tax Reduction Fund and County and City Revenue Sharing Fund. For budgeting purposes, these transfers are treated as State General Fund expenditures.
Transfer (Revenue): Authority in appropriation bills transferring all or part of the revenue in a particular fund to another fund prior to expending the funds. An example includes the transfer from the State Highway Fund in the Department of Transportation to the Division of Vehicles Operating Fund in the Department of Revenue.
Unclassified Temporary Positions: Persons appointed to the unclassified service on a temporary basis, usually for the duration of a particular project or program. These employees are not included in the FTE count but they are counted as part of the total state workforce.