Glossary of Terms

An integration containing AFRS accounting values. 

The designator that identifies the nature of the spending authority, such as state, federal, private/local. See SAAM 75.50.10.

The identification of a total life-cycle cost of a facility project. Life-cycle cost analysis is defined as the programmatic and technical considerations of all cost elements associated with capital facility alternatives under consideration. These cost elements may include any or all of the following: Capital Investment Costs, Lease Costs, Financial Costs, Operations Costs, Maintenance Costs, Alternations Costs, Replacement Costs, Denial of Use Costs, Lost Revenue and Associated Costs.

A state employee possessing the knowledge, skills, and abilities through training and education who is able to develop and draft transactionally relevant procurement and contract documents to support agency operations.

This plan will document mapping of environment to the physical tenant.

The ability to define an agency’s plan of estimated expenditures, revenues, cash disbursements, and cash receipts for each month of the biennium.

A person or agency that buys goods or services directly, based on delegated authority or through utilization of DES services.

As a unit of measure of state employees: refers to the equivalent of one person working full-time for one year (approximately 2,088 hours of paid staff time). Two persons working half-time also count as one FTE. As a unit of measure of students in K-12 or higher education facilities: refers to the equivalent of one student attending class full-time for one school year (based on fixed hours of attendance, depending on grade level).

Funds that are not subject to either the appropriation or the allotment process.

An agency that purchases or acquires goods and/or services.

A workflow is approval routing for a process. When there is an approval needed, the system will send it to the appropriate assigned person to approve before moving onto the next step.

Helps end-users understand how their job is changing and be prepared for new roles and responsibilities – before training.

Creation of the long-term financing and expenditure pan for acquisition, construction, or improvement of capital assets such as land and buildings, and for programs that accomplish facility improvements. The capital budget is included in an appropriation bill for a specific biennium; the Ten-Year Capital Plan is proposed by the Governor but not enacted into law.

Broad, high-level, issue-oriented statements of an organization's desired future direction or desired state.

The costs of the regular custodial care, utilities, refuse and recycling services, parking management, boiler operations, law enforcement and security, property management, visitor information, tour services, fire protection and life-safety services, including salaries of facility staff performing these tasks.

Unused appropriation authority. If an agency does not spend all of its appropriation in the timeframe specified by the budget, the authorization to spend that dollar amount expires.

Any state office or activity of the executive and judicial branches of state government, including state agencies, departments, offices, divisions, boards, commissions, institutions of higher education as defined in RCW 28B.10.016, and correctional and other types of institutions.

As opposed to systems maintained on-premise, the Cloud is a network of remote, internet-based systems hosted on the internet used to store and process data.

Obtaining goods or services directly from a qualified vendor, without any competition that may otherwise be required, in direct response to an emergency.

The examination of work completed or in progress to determine its conformance with the requirements of the contract documents.

Local governments, including counties, cities, special districts, and public benefit non-profit 501(c)3 organizations.

See: Competitive Solicitation

A legal authorization to make expenditures and incur obligations for specific purposes from a specific account over a specific time period. Appropriations typically limit expenditures to a specific amount and purpose within a fiscal year or biennial timeframe. Only the Legislature can make appropriations in Washington State.

The need for cost contingency is generated by a lack of information, at a particular point in time, for the task being estimated. Appropriate contingency amounts are dependent on the degree of risk present and the extent of the technical challenge surrounding the task. The design contingency legitimately covers uncertainties in a project and should be reduced through each phase of the design. Construction contingencies should be limited to 5 percent on new construction and 10 percent on remodeling work. Contingencies should not be considered as opportunities for extra work or to change original budget decisions

Managed file transfer (MFT) is a technology platform that allows organizations to reliable and securely exchange electronic data between systems. 

Decreases in net current financial resources. Expenditures include disbursements and accruals for the current period. Encumbrances are not included.

The total cost of an item to the state over its estimated useful life, including costs of selection, acquisition, operation, maintenance, and where applicable, disposal, as far as these costs can reasonably be determined, minus the salvage value at the end of its estimated useful life.

Any of the major activities of an agency expressed as a primary function or organizational unit. Agencies may not alter their program structure without the explicit approval of the Legislature and OFM.

This system enables agencies to develop allotment packets online. It supports allotment development, management, review, reporting and monitoring needs for state agencies, OFM and the Legislature.

An enterprise application developed as a tool to assist agencies in building all components of the decision package and submitting operating and transportation budget requests online. The new Agency Budget System (ABS) replaced BDS in June of 2018.