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Starting in FY26, Metro State is working to improve visibility and management of Personal Property/Service Charges and Differential Tuition by pointing the revenue and expenses related to them in dedicated Workday program codes.
Establishing the practice - FY26 Budget and Actual
Personal Property / Service Charges (PP/SC) and Differential Tuition charged on specific courses or programs provide additional revenue to offset the additional costs of providing these programs or courses.
During FY25, two colleges had asked for better visibility on these revenues and expenses. During FY26 budgeting, the CFO also noticed that better visibility was needed to ensure colleges receive the expense budget to support these needs. In May 2025, Financial Management worked with the Provost, and affected Deans, and Office Managers to estimate the FY26 revenue and expense related to PP/SC and Differential Tuition revenue Breakout between NonPersonnel and personnel was estimated. It generally resulted in:
- moving or splitting out where the FY26 budget was loaded (See attached list of Fall/Summer FY26 PPSC/differential tuition program codes).
- i.e where there used to be a Human Services program code, there now is a Human Services and a Human Services PPSC program code
- review of already submitted PP/SC forms for cc changes (to point to the new)
- After email communication with form submitters, Accounts Receivable set up the Fall/Summer PP/SC fee revenue to the new location ISRS cc (Workday program code).
- Accounts Receivable also set up the Differential Tuition revenue to point to the new codes for improved visibility.
Expenses
Important: Those in the colleges who make nonpersonnel purchases in support of PP/SCs or Differential tuition should code expenses to the appropriate program codes so they match against the actual revenue.
Once spring semester revenues are reflected in Workday, Financial Management will have the data needed to adjust expense budgets based on the actual PP/SC or Differential Tuition revenue (from actual enrollment). That granularity and ability to adjust did not exist for most colleges in FY25.
- If enrollment is higher than budgeted, you presumably need to purchase for more students, so your expense budget should be higher (which is fine because you are also receiving more revenue for this dedicated purpose).
- If enrollment is lower that budgeted, you presumably need to purchase for fewer students, so your expense budget can be reduced to match the incoming revenue (which is appropriate because less fee revenue for this dedicated purpose was received).
This practice should also give colleges better information for setting their fee amounts for future terms.
It will also enable carryforward of any excess differential tuition. PP/SC excess will not carry forward.
Moving forward
If there are PP/SCs in new academic departments, or new differential tuition, please contact Mark Faxvog and Wendy Helm so we can discuss if there are new Workday program codes needed.
As PP/SCs are requested for new terms, please use the dedicated program codes (list attached).
Questions, please contact Wendy Helm.
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NOTE: There are a couple of process items that require further follow up after initial budget load:
- Differential Tuition that funds personnel expense is a bit tricky
- for now we loaded the estimated personnel budget funded by differential tuition as a positive salary and negative fringe number in those program codes so the amounts are visible but net to $0, knowing that the actual budget is in the 'home' program code. FM will work with the Provost and Deans affected to solution during FY25.
- We have learned that doctoral differential tuition cannot be pointed to a specific program code (it will go into the main tuition pool) - we will look at solutioning in late summer