Starting in June 2020 the RA research accounts came under the HET Operations budget, so the approval and reporting procedures have been updated to reflect that.

All expenditures from these accounts require approval by either the facility manager or the science operations manager, and are expected to be within the following categories:

• Travel to a science conference + registration fees
• Travel to work with collaborators on astronomical research or a paper
• Purchasing computer hardware or software to conduct astronomical research
• Publication charges
• Purchasing a publication related to one's research.

In practice, please submit all ​Purchase Order requests to the science operations manager, who will approve them and forward them to Robyn for purchasing. Other needs and purchases beyond these categories should be discussed in advance to determine which account is most appropriate to use.

All travel requests should be drawn from account 14-9643-7050 (contains 4k/year/RA), and all incidental requests should be drawn from account 14-9643-7075 (contains 1k/year/RA). These accounts are separate from the HETNO account. Also effective 2020 these are not state funds so the unspent funds will rollover into HET improvements budgets to support new projects and much-needed upgrades. The encouragement to spend the full allotment no longer applies like it did with these accounts years ago. Some oversight may eventually be implemented to qualify research funds based on research outputs, but none is in place at this time.