Every department in Arts & Sciences with a graduate program gets a yearly allocation for the graduate students to utilize however they see fit. The funds come from the Student Activity Fees that all graduates are required to pay. Each department is allocated a specific amount based on its graduate student enrollment figures. Allocations are made on a yearly basis in the fall semester. Many departments choose to hold graduate meetings to relay information from the A&S GSO meetings to the rest of the grads and to discuss the spending of their funds.
Money is often used to purchase food for grad meetings, fund a happy hour/coffee hour, purchase niceties for the TA offices/labs (furniture, maps, etc.), or to hold graduate picnics. If there are subsets within your department, the funds may be divided between them. This is at the discretion of the department's graduate student body and must be maintained by the department. The A&S GSO only keeps records of each department's total balance.
Obtaining Your Department's GSO Account Balance
To request a copy of your department's account information, including the available balance of your account, please contact the Administrative Assistant.
Department Information Sheets
What are they?
Department Information Sheets are used to establish the two department representatives to the GSO and their contact information. It also establishes the two individuals authorized to sign expense forms (e.g. reimbursement forms). Two additional grads must sign as witnesses to the granting of expense authorization to those individuals. If your department has not submitted this form, funds from the department's account may not be accessed.
Who fills them out?
Information is required about the two representatives to the GSO council. Three to four signatures are required (1-2 spending authorizers and 2 witnesses). Typically the primary representative will take responsibility for the form. This means obtaining the necessary information and signatures and submitting it to the A&S GSO Administrative Assistant.
Should the expense authorizers be the same as the reps?
Some departments choose to make their reps the authorizers and some choose to have other grads serve as authorizers. It may depend on how active your department is within the GSO or whether your department has decided to hold its own regular graduate meetings with department GSO officers (i.e. department representatives, president, treasurers, secretary, etc.).
It is a good idea to have TWO people acting as expense authorizers as only the person who has spent the money can have it reimbursed to them, but one cannot authorize their own reimbursement.
Download The Form
Department Information Sheet(.pdf)
To submit this form it must be printed out, completed with
signatures, and returned to the Administrative Assistant.
Submission Deadline
To be eligible to spend money from your accounts, the Department Information Sheet must be submitted to the Administrative Assistant every fall (usually by the October GSO meeting.)
What happens if your department has not submitted one?
After the deadline Departments will NOT be allowed to spend any money until the Department Information Sheet has been turned in. These rules are in place for the benefit of the graduate students within each department. It is important to maintain up to date records of the individuals who have access to the accounts. It is also required that departments are active in the GSO to maintain access to their funds.
Spending Department GSO Money
Reimbursements
Most department spending is done by reimbursement. Please follow the instructions on the reimbursement form (.pdf) carefully. You must submit original, itemized receipts to be reimbursed. Once the Administrative Assistant has received the form, reimbursement usually takes 4 to 6 weeks.
Guidelines for Completing a Request
- Until further notice, applications may only be submitted in complete hard copy format (not by email)
- If you're not typing your allocation, please print neatly and legibly. Illegible handwriting may prevent successful processing of your payment.
- You MUST state whether you are an employee of the University. TAs and TFs are employees. Of you get regular paychecks from the University, you are an employee. If you are not sure, please check with your department administrator or other appropriate individual.
- Whether the address you prefer to have the check mailed to is a campus address or home address, please provide the FULL mailing address.
- You may not leave any section of the form incomplete. If there is missing or incomplete information, it will NOT be processed.
- Receipts must be organized and taped onto 8.5" x 11" paper.
- You must submit one original packet containing the Reimbursement Request Form, Event Sign-In form, and original receipts and two additional copies of the entire packet.
- Paperclip each copy. Do not staple.
Recording Attendance At Events
Part of the reimbursement process requires that you keep track of the people who attended the event. The easiest way is to have people sign-in (.pdf) but you may also create a list after-the-fact if necessary.
Who may receive reimbursements/disbursements?
Each person who spent money for an event must be reimbursed separately, and so must file a separate reimbursement request but only one list of people attending the event needs to be submitted.
If you know in advance that you will need to spend a large sum of money or if you want to spend money within the University please contact the Administrative Assistant to make arrangements.
Spending Authorization
One of the expense signatories below must approve, in writing or by e-mail, all reimbursement requests or other payments from the department accounts. If an authorized person is not listed then the department is not currently in good standing and is not eligible to spend money. Contact the Administrative Assistant for details.
Carryover Requests
What are they?
Carryover requests provide the A&S GSO with a summer and early fall contact person for each department. This is especially important for the early fall when departments may be switching representatives. A contact person must be maintained to pass information on to the new representative before we have confirmation of the change.
The carryover request also specifies if the department's remaining funds are going to be used after the new fiscal year. If your department has not used all of its funds and would like to maintain access to them in the new fiscal year, this MUST be specified. Otherwise, only $100 of the funds will be maintained in the account and the rest will be added back into the A&S GSO budget for the new fiscal year.
Carryover requests are due at the March GSO Council meeting. They will be voted on at the April meeting.
Who fills them out?
The form should be filled out by the summer/early fall contact person and/or the current representative.
Download The Form
Carryover Request Form: PDF DOC
What happens if your department has not submitted one?
You will forfeit any money in your account over $100 on June 30 if you don't request that your funds be carried over. If you do not complete a carryover request by the deadline, you may submit a request at one of next year's Council meeting to have your funds reinstated but you will not be allowed to access any funds over $100 until that request has been approved by the Council.
