Finance and Budget Specialist
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, VA
Full-time
Finance
Posted on May 29, 2023
Summary:
The Partnership for People with Disabilities has been a long-standing grant center under the School of Education for over 35 years. We are seeking a dynamic candidate to serve as a Finance and Budget Specialist overseeing budget monitoring, payroll changes on grant budgets, invoicing, and fiscal training for our various staff positions. This position will join the Partnership's fiscal team and play a significant role for the center. Our center supports 60% teleworking utilizing the current VCU policy, professional development, and a flexible work schedule for all eligible positions. This position is open rank with an anticipated slotting of Sr. Financial Specialist 2 in the Financial Services Job Family, Job Code 18215.
Duties and Responsibilities:
The position will partner with our current Financial Coordinator under the direction of the Director of Business Operations to provide oversight of the daily fiscal, budgeting, and billing needs for the unit supporting over $13M of sponsored programs funding. The incumbent is responsible for developing and reviewing budgets, reconciling a large number of accounts, working with Grants & Contracts to ensure invoicing is submitted timely, participating on grant writing teams to ensure the financial requirements are met, meeting with PIs on a consistent basis to provide guidance on spending, projections, and budget revisions, and other duties as assigned.
Key responsibilities will include:
- Serves as the primary contact for billing for all grants (including Omega Billing for VDOE).
- Serves as the primary contact for financial requirements on all grant proposals.
- Serves as approver for fiscal and travel transactions and processes when needed.
- Serves as the secondary contact for all fiscal processing, contracts, and travel.
- Manages budget development and tracking.
- Serves as the Effort Coordinator for the unit (Monitors effort for department and prepare payroll transactions).
- Provide secondary support to the HR team for semi-monthly payroll upon request.
- Provides training for the fiscal staff and Principal investigators on budget development and tracking.
- Manages post award grant funds for assigned projects in accordance with federal and industry uniform guidance and University policy & procedures, as well as sponsor requirements. This includes completion of monthly finance reports and meeting with stakeholders (fiscal staff, PIs, and the Finance Director); providing accurate information for grant renewals and continuations (90 day notices); preparing final expense reports; reviewing and approving sub-recipient invoices; etc.
- Prepares monthly budget reports for leadership; and reviews monthly reports submitted by fiscal staff for accuracy.
- Reviews monthly reports of fiscal team members and assists with resolving discrepancies.
- Provides support to fiscal and grants team members for complex fiscal and grants administration issues.
- Ensures accurate application of financial rules and regulations for grant projects.
- Remains organized and has a strong attention to detail.
- Utilizes Gmail and Monday.com on a daily basis to track requests and communicate with others.
- Serves on Unit level, School level and University level committees upon request.
- Other duties as assigned.
- 5 years of relevant work experience, or equivalent combination of education, experience and training.
- Demonstrated experience in working in and fostering a diverse faculty, staff and student environment or commitment to do so as a staff member at VCU.
- Excellent attention to detail and ability to meet deadlines, multi-task and determine priorities
- Must be able to train others and anticipate conducting at least 4-5 trainings per year on budget and fiscal processes
- Proficiency in the daily use of Microsoft Excel, Google suite and Zoom.
- Demonstrated ability to work independently, and prioritize multiple complex tasks.
- Must be able to assist with the oversight of staff progress and professional development, and supervise others upon request
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
- Excellent customer service.
- Work a flexible schedule and/ or overtime as needed to meet deadlines and deliverable upon request.
- Willingness to learn sponsored programs and Grants & Contracts' policies and processes for managing grant funds
- Excellent collaboration skills
- Experience using financial recordkeeping and/or procurement software systems such as Banner Finance or VCU Real Source
- 7-10+ years of relevant work experience, or equivalent combination of education, experience and training.
- Experience with state/university or higher education setting
- Knowledge of state and university financial operations, policies, procedures and systems
- Experience with university purchasing procedures
- Experience with sponsored programs rules and regulations
Position Details:
Department: Partnership for People with Disabilities
Employment Type: UF - University Employee FT
Restricted Status: Yes
FTE: 100
Exemption Status: Exempt
Contact Information:
Contact Name: Melinda DeBrew
Contact Email: ppdhr@vcu.edu