Key Budget and Financial Terms

Appropriation: state funds appropriated annually by the Illinois legislature to partially fund university operations. 

Auxiliary: an entity that exists to furnish goods or services to students, faculty or staff, and that charges a fee directly related to, although not necessarily equal to, the cost of the goods and services.

Base Budget: the permanent funds given to each unit so that it can carry out its mission each year.

Budget: the plan for where revenues adequate to run NIU are forecast to come from and how those funds should be allocated each year.

Capital Funds: the expenditure of funds to acquire land or pay the cost of planning and construction of new buildings, or additions to and modification of existing buildings, and the equipment related to such.

Cash on Hand: A critical measure of liquidity and financial health of an organization, it refers to the amount of accessible cash the university has readily available and accessible at a given time to cover day-to-day operational expenses, manage short-term liabilities and address unexpected financial needs. As an example, if the university reports on a given date that it has 60-days cash on hand, it means that it has enough cash to only cover 60 days worth of any expenses if no other revenue were to arrive. NIU’s preferred target is to consistently have 60 to 90 days on hand.

Debt service: the money required to cover the payment of interest and principal on bonds, loans or other debt instruments over a period of time.

Fiscal Year: a 12-month period used for accounting and budget purposes. NIU’s fiscal year begins July 1 and ends June 30.

Forecast: financial projections that estimate revenues, expenses and cash flows created using past performance data, current trends and futuristic assumptions​.

Full-time Equivalent Students (FTES): an important measure of the number of students at NIU. One FTES equals 1 course credit units × enrollment /12 semester units taken; for graduate students, one FTES equals 12 semester units per term.

Funds: the different buckets in which monies are kept. Each operates as its own system, with spending and revenues received in each of these. The main fund is the General Fund, through which most revenues, and out of which most spending, occurs.

General Revenue Fund: money which must be approved by the General Assembly and governor and then sent to NIU. Money in this fund generally needs to be spent by the end of the fiscal year.

Governor’s Budget: Typically in January, the Illinois governor proposes a plan for obtaining adequate revenues and a plan for spending those revenues. The General Assembly reviews this proposal and then votes to change and/or approve it. After the governor signs what the General Assembly has approved, the allocated funds then go to state institutions such as NIU.

Net Tuition Revenue: the amount of tuition that has been paid by a student. This is the amount of tuition charges minus any Pell grants, MAP awards, Huskie Aim High or other institutional aid, or the amount actually collected by the university as opposed to net assessed tuition.

Reserve Fund: another bucket of money where funds set aside for later spending are kept. Not all types of funds can have funds remaining in them at the end of the fiscal year to be carried forward into the next fiscal year.

Restricted Fund: A restricted fund is a reserve account that contains money that can only be used for specific purposes. Restricted funds provide reassurance to donors that their contributions are used in a manner they have chosen.

Truth in Tuition: state law that ensures tuition rates will not increase for eligible undergraduate students for four continuous academic years beginning with the student’s initial term of enrollment.