2C03
BUDGET ASSISTANT II

This is budget work at the full performance level assisting departmental administrators in planning, preparing and maintaining departmental budgets. Employees in this class screen budget requests for conformance to departmental directives and other reporting requirements, gather and assemble historical cost data, prepare cost estimates, and monitor budget expenditures for conformance to departmental directives and other reporting requirements. Work may also include responsibility for supervising the activities of a staff engaged in processing and recording budgetary transactions. Work is performed under the general supervision of an administrative superior.

ALLOCATING FACTORS: (The following conditions must be met for a position to be approved for this class.)

1. Employees in this position must assist in the preparation, planning, and maintenance of departmental budgets.
2. Employees in this position must monitor expenditures and encumbrances to maintain sufficient funding balances.
3. Employees in this position must prepare status reports on budgetary transactions.

• Elicits budget requests from departmental administrators; explains procedures to be followed in developing budget requests; provides current cost data for inclusion in requests.
• Reviews requests for accuracy, completeness and conformance to instructions; evaluates the operational efficiency of requested programs to insure that adequate personnel, materials, and supplies, and all other program needs have been included; recommends to supervisor changes in request to assure program success; writes justifications to clarify the need for, and the benefits to be derived from, requested programs; questions program personnel on possible sources of outside funding; prepares cost schedules for inclusion in grant applications; reviews grant applications for accuracy and completeness; prepares estimates on the amount of revenue to be generated by programs; prepares estimates of reimbursements from funding sources; prorates costs to funding accounts.
• Meets with departmental administrators to discuss budget proposals and to establish the priority of different requests; explains cost data and justifications for individual programs; recommends to superiors the deletion, inclusion or modification of different requests; discusses the strategy to be employed in requesting programs, such as implementing a program in phases over several budget years; attends budget review hearings; presents additional supporting data to aid departmental administrators in explaining and justifying budget requests; distributes decreases in budget requests according to priorities established by departmental administrators.
• Receives projects to be requested in the capital program; elicits the priority for each project and the proposed construction schedule from departmental administrators; prepares capital budget request sheets by distributing cost data provided by architects and engineers over categories to expense according to established procedures; estimates increased operating expenses to be incurred by opening new and expanded facilities; reviews requisitions for conformance to the budget; notifies administrators of requisitions for non-budgeted items; recommends the transfer of monies to cover non-budgeted items; monitors expenditures and encumbrances to identify potential overdrafts and surpluses; structures encumbrance documents to retain a sufficient balance of unencumbered funds to absorb emergency expenditures.
• Prepares periodic reports on budget transactions, including reports on the status of budgetary accounts, on the status of capital projects, and on expenditures made by contract agencies; prepares reports required by funding and monitoring agencies.
• Supervises a clerical staff engaged in maintaining accounts of all budgeted allotments, processing purchase requisitions, invoices and other fiscal documents, maintaining records, and typing and assembling the preliminary and final budgets; prepares a variety of periodic and special reports showing the status of budgetary allotments and forecasts of expenditures.
• Performs related work as required.

KNOWLEDGE OF:

• the principles, practices, and problems of preparing and administering operating and capital budgets in a municipal agency.
• the principles and techniques of developing and maintaining cost and performance statistics.
• accounting principles and practices.
• administrative principles and practices as they relate to large business or governmental organizations.
• fiscal reporting requirements and conventions.
• Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Department of Public Welfare Children and Youth regulations and guidelines, if required by work assignment.
• Federal Title IV-E regulations and guidelines, if required by work assignment.
• the uses of computer software for financial reporting.
• recordkeeping and reporting systems used in budget preparation.

SKILL IN:

• forecasting expenditures based on current and previous expenses.
• making arithmetic and statistical calculations based on financial data.
• maintenance of accurate and complete financial records.

ABILITY TO:

• exercise initiative and judgment in analyzing departmental needs and in making pertinent recommendations concerning related budget requests and administration.
• supervise the work of a group of employees engaged in maintaining budgetary and related records.
• prepare comprehensive fiscal reports and statements.
• interpret, analyze and comprehend State and Federal and accounting/auditing standards applicable to departmental budgeting directives and practices.
• establish and maintain effective working relationship with departmental and central agency officials.

EDUCATION

• Completion of a bachelor's degree program in accounting from an accredited college or university.

AND
GENERAL EXPERIENCE

• Two years of accounting or budgeting experience at the advanced trainee level in the analysis of budget requirements and expenditures and the preparation of budget requests in a large governmental jurisdiction, utility, or corporation.

Or any equivalent combination of education and experience which has included a bachelor's degree as the educational minimum.

PHYSICAL AND MEDICAL REQUIREMENTS

• Ability to physically perform the duties and to work in the environmental conditions required of a position in this class.

PAY RANGE: EP19
Class Established:
  CSC - 9/1969 ; Ad Board - 12/1969

Spec. Revision:
  CSC - 2/1998 ; Ad Board - 4/1998

SK/sk/deb