Budget & Planning Analyst

Job no: 499076
Work type: Staff Full-time
Department: Katz School of Science and Health
Location: Beren Campus, 245 Lexington Avenue, NY, NY
Categories: Accounting/Finance

Position Summary:

The Katz School is seeking a budget professional to serve as its Budget & Planning Analyst - a hands-on role building, maintaining, and analyzing the School's budget while working shoulder-to-shoulder with the programs that drive it. The work spans the School's budget across 16 programs and four campuses.

Read this part before anything else. This is a build-it-yourself, individual-contributor role. There is no team beneath this seat and no one to hand the detail work to. You will build the models, run the variance analysis, reconcile the personnel lines, track the requisitions, and sit down with faculty and program directors to walk them through their numbers. If you want to be the person who actually owns the numbers and is trusted to run with them, read on. If you are looking to set strategy from above and delegate the analysis, this is not the role.

Two things set this position apart from a typical budget analyst role:

• You work the revenue side. Preparing enrollment-driven net tuition projections is part of the job - scope most budget analysts never touch. Revenue is part of the picture here, not just expenses.
• You sit in the business, not the back office. This role lives among the program directors and unit managers, not heads-down in the finance function. It calls for someone who can run day-to-day analyses and recurring budget work independently and is comfortable engaging program staff directly rather than only staying behind a spreadsheet.

This role reports to the Director of Administrative Services and Operations within Katz, with a dotted-line relationship to the University's Director of Budget and Planning in the Office of Business Affairs (Finance). Direction-setting and senior University finance relationships rest with the Director; this role works within that structure.

Position Responsibilities:

1. Building and Maintaining the Budget (Revenue and Expense)

• Help build and maintain the School's annual budget across all 16 programs, covering both the revenue and expense sides
• Prepare enrollment-driven net tuition revenue projections - translating enrollment, tuition, and scholarship assumptions into the revenue side of the budget
• Support multi-year budget planning and update figures as enrollment and program conditions change
• Prepare budget scenarios and clearly lay out the drivers, risks, and tradeoffs for the Director and program leaders
• Support salary and fringe budgeting at the position level, including reconciliation of personnel expenses

2. Working in the Business

• Work directly with program directors, unit managers, and faculty as the School's day-to-day budget contact
• Help program staff understand and manage their budgets, stay within budget, and see the budget implications of operational decisions
• Work independently - handle analyses and recurring budget work, escalating issues and decisions to the Director
• Understand how the programs actually run, not just how they appear in budget reports
• Communicate budget information clearly to non-financial program staff so they can act on it

3. Forecasting, Monitoring and Variance

• Prepare budget forecasts and ongoing reforecasts as conditions change
• Conduct budget-to-actual variance analysis that explains the "why" and flags issues
• Monitor expenditures and help program directors and unit managers with budget management and compliance
• Perform program- and unit-level cost analysis to support efficiency and budget planning
• Contribute to quarterly budget reviews and long-range budget planning

4. Procurement Monitoring and Budget Administration

• Track requisitions, purchase orders, and invoices in the University's financial system to confirm each is moving through its approval workflow and nothing is stuck
• Watch spend against budget as purchases and payments flow through, flagging overages or issues to program staff and the Director
• Process and monitor budget transactions (transfers, position adjustments, inter-fund activity) in line with University policy

5. Collaboration with Central Finance and Procurement

• Work with central Procurement on resolving vendor or payment issues

Experience & Educational Background:

Minimum requirements for hire:

• Bachelor's degree required, ideally in Finance, Accounting, Business, Economics, or a related quantitative field
• Three or more years of experience in budgeting, budget analysis, forecasting, procurement analysis, or closely related financial analysis work
• Strong analytical ability and demonstrated comfort building and working in detailed financial models

A plus - or something we will help you grow into:

• Experience with the revenue side of a budget (enrollment, tuition, fee, or other volume-driven revenue). If you have not built revenue models before but have the analytical horsepower and appetite to learn, we want to hear from you
• Advanced degree in Finance, Business Administration, or a related field
• Prior higher education budgeting experience

Skills & Competencies:

Technical / analytical:

• Advanced Excel - pivot tables, scenario modeling, lookup functions, budget dashboards
• Strong reporting ability - can turn data into clear, decision-ready output
• Budget-to-actual variance analysis and reporting
• Comfort with multi-year and scenario-based modeling
• Familiarity with procurement/purchasing systems and the requisition-to-payment approval workflow (requisitions, purchase orders, invoices)
• Experience with enterprise financial/budget systems and reporting tools

Works independently and in the business (essential to success in this role):

• Can run with assignments and recurring work without close supervision, escalating when needed
• Comfortable working directly with program directors, unit managers, and faculty
• Curiosity about how programs actually operate - wants to be in the business, not heads-down in the function
• Clear written and verbal communication, with the ability to make budget information understandable for non-financial staff
• High attention to detail, strong organization, and the ability to manage multiple priorities on deadline

Preferred:

• Experience with process improvement or systems enhancement
• Interest in using data tools to improve budgeting and reporting

Supervisory responsibility: None. This is an individual-contributor role.

Application Instructions:

Please upload a cover letter, CV, and a list of three (3) references.

Application note: Candidates will be asked to briefly describe a budget, model, or analysis they personally built and owned - and to walk through how they would approach building the revenue side of a school's budget.

Salary Range:

$85,000-$95,000 annually, commensurate with experience and qualifications.