Expenditure of STARs funds

These expenditure guidelines apply to all STARs awards made since 2008-09.

All funding obtained under the STARs program shall be expended or encumbered within three years of the date of the award for retention awards, or within three years from the date the faculty member arrived on campus for recruitment awards. All funds not expended or encumbered after this deadline shall lapse and be returned to UT System for reallocation.

The deans of the colleges and schools shall notify both existing and future STARs award recipients in writing of the deadlines to expend/encumber STARs funds as outlined in these guidelines.

Each college and school is responsible for ensuring expenditures are compliant with UT System STARs expenditure policies.

Allowable expenses:

• Acquisition of capital equipment with a useful life of at least one year. Costs may include:
  • the base price, consisting of charges for modifications, attachments, accessories, auxiliary apparatus needed to make it useable, and
  • taxes, duty, in-transit insurance, freight, and installation charges
• Major repairs or rehabilitation of buildings or other permanent improvements
• Software licenses if the software will have a useful life for more than one year and the software is considered owned by the department/university. Examples include Adobe products and Microsoft Office products.

Expenditures not allowed:

Include, but are not limited to:

• Animals
• Salaries and fringe
• Warranties (including computer warranties)
• Chemicals and gases
• Software with an annual or term license, such as FootPrints
• Software that will not be owned by the department/university
• Office supplies such as paper, staplers, toner cartridges, medical supplies, disposal services, laboratory supplies, and/or other office supplies
• Operating costs such monthly telephone services, software maintenance costs, routine maintenance, routine training, sales tax and/or travel

To facilitate compliance, an object audit group (OAG) has been created to only allow object codes for expenditures that are permissable under the STARs program. All STARs budget groups will use this object audit group (36 STARS).

The specific object codes permitted under the object audit group (36 STARS) include:

*The use of the object code for software must be requested. To request the use of this object code, please complete this form and submit to Plant Funds within Accounting & Financial Management.