3-2: Budget monitoring and management

Effective: July 1, 1994
Revised: September 23, 2026
References: Utah Code 63J-1-102, Utah Code 63J-1-104, Utah Code 63J-1-105, Utah Code 63J-1-201, Utah Code 63J-1-206, Utah Code 63J-1-209, Utah Code 63J-1-217, Utah Code 63J-1-601, 3-1: Budget and major revenue requirements

Purpose

This policy outlines requirements for agencies to monitor and manage budgets throughout the fiscal year to ensure expenditures remain within authorized spending authority and available funding and to identify and correct budget issues timely.

This policy applies to all funds requiring an annual legislative budget, including the General Fund, Income Tax Fund, Transportation Fund, Transportation Investment Fund, Debt Service Funds, and Alcoholic Beverage Services Fund.

Definitions

Agency – Any agency, board, bureau, commission, office, department, or other administrative subunit of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of state government.

BGAA – Budget Generation and Adjustment Authorization transaction in Vantage Financial.

GovOps – The Department of Government Operations.

Line item/Item of appropriation – A specific appropriation approved by the legislature in an appropriations bill that defines how funds may be used. As the highest level of budget authority in the financial system, it may include both original and supplemental appropriations. Each line item is divided into one or more authorized programs and may also include legislative intent language or other financial conditions that agencies must follow.

State finance – The GovOps Division of Finance.

Policy

A – Agencies must manage and monitor their budgets

1 – Agencies must monitor and manage their budgets throughout the fiscal year to ensure compliance with legislative appropriations, available funding, statutory restrictions, and other applicable budget requirements.

1a – Legislative appropriations establish spending authority but don’t create cash or guarantee that sufficient funding will be available. Agencies must have both authorized spending authority, when applicable, and sufficient available funding before incurring or authorizing expenditures.

1b – Agencies must use funds only for their authorized or intended purposes and ensure that budget activity recorded in Vantage Financial remains consistent with approved budget authority.

B – Agencies must monitor budget-to-actual activity and available funding

1 – Agencies must regularly review budget-to-actual activity, including revenues, expenditures, encumbrances, available balances, and other relevant financial activity, to identify actual or projected budget issues.

2 – Agencies must monitor revenue collections and other funding sources throughout the fiscal year to ensure sufficient resources are available to support planned expenditures.

2a – When an appropriation is supported by revenue collected in another source fund, the agency must monitor collections in the source fund to ensure sufficient funding is available to support the appropriation.

3 – Agencies must monitor major revenue types, including dedicated credits, expendable receipts, federal revenues, and revenue transfers, to identify when collections or expenditures may trigger additional budget approval or statutory reporting requirements. See state finance policy 3-1: Budget and major revenue requirements.

C – Agencies must take timely corrective action

1 – Agencies must take timely corrective action when monitoring identifies an actual or projected budget issue, including when:

expenditures may exceed authorized spending authority;
expenditures may exceed available funding;
revenue collections are less than anticipated;
revenue collections or expenditures may exceed statutory or approved levels;
budget activity in Vantage Financial does not align with approved budget authority; or
other statutory approval or reporting requirements may be triggered.

2 – Corrective action may include reducing or delaying expenditures, identifying other legally available funding, correcting detailed budgets, requesting a budget modification, getting state finance approval through a BGAA transaction when required, or completing required statutory reporting.

D – State finance monitors statewide budget activity

1 – State finance periodically monitors statewide budget and revenue activity for compliance with legislative appropriations and applicable budget requirements. State finance will provide agencies with monitoring reports identifying potential compliance issues, including potential overspending, revenue shortfalls, revenue thresholds, and required budget or reporting actions.

2 – Agencies are responsible for reviewing state finance monitoring reports and taking timely action to investigate and resolve identified issues, including getting required budget approvals and completing applicable reporting.

3 – State finance monitoring doesn’t replace an agency’s responsibility to monitor and manage its own budgets and funding throughout the fiscal year.

E – Agencies must not overexpend legislative line items

1 – State law prohibits agencies from overexpending a legislative line item. If a line item is overexpended at fiscal year-end, the agency must prepare a written report explaining the reasons for the overexpenditure and present the report to the Board of Examiners and the Office of the Legislative Fiscal Analyst, as required by Utah Code 63J-1-217.

2 – If an agency overexpends a line item in a prior year, state finance will require the agency to reduce the agency’s current-year line-item budget by the amount of the prior-year overexpenditure. The agency must submit a BGAA transaction according to state finance instruction to record the reduction in Vantage Financial.