Budget and Contract Manager (Headquarters)

About Us:

The Police Athletic League (or PAL) is New York City’s largest independent youth development organization. We operate diverse programs from Head Start, Day Car and Universal Pre-K programs; to elementary and middle school after-school programs, summer day camps and summer Playstreets. We run evening teen centers and college readiness programs, as well as youth employment and juvenile justice programs. In its over a century of service, PAL is continuing its evolution and remains a vibrant and vital New York City institution.

Position Summary

The Budget & Contracts Manager plays an elevated, high-impact leadership role within the Fiscal Department, serving as the primary operational link between strategic contract oversight and tactical financial execution. Reporting directly to the Budget & Contracts Director, this position oversees the day-to-day management of the agency's government and foundation contract portfolios. A primary responsibility of this role is the direct supervision, training, and professional development of the Grants & Contracts Accounting team, ensuring that all team assignments align with the department’s monthly close schedule and established funder cadences.

This position acts as a critical internal consultant and compliance gatekeeper. Rather than simply facilitating transactional billing, the Budget & Contracts Manager drives proactive, analytical fiscal management by establishing new workflows, tracking tools, and rigorous review processes. This leader ensures that public and private resources are utilized to their maximum capacity, completely mitigating the risk of disallowed costs. The ideal candidate balances highly developed technical accounting skills with a collaborative approach, effectively partnering with cross-functional program directors, executive leadership, and auditing bodies to demonstrate pristine stewardship of organizational funding.

Responsibilities:

• Supervise, train, and mentor the Grants & Contracts Accountants; establish standardized tracking workflows, evaluate performance, and continuously cross-train staff on complex vouchering, allocations, and non-profit accounting principles.

• Serve as the mandatory internal review and approval authority for all contract vouchers, invoices, and required financial reports prior to portal submission, ensuring absolute data integrity and zero mathematical or compliance errors.

• Assist in guiding the end-to-end development of contract budgets and complex modifications; support collaboration with senior staff to manage the iterative back-and-forth negotiations with funding portals until final agency approval is secured.

• Actively analyze and monitor portfolio spending trends against approved budgets; identify financial risks, forecast structural over- or under-spending, and partner with program staff to build data-backed mitigation strategies.

• Oversee the comprehensive reconciliation of general ledger activity against active contract billings, resolving complex misallocations, tracking time and effort distributions, and balancing all receivables and advances.

• Act as the primary technical point of contact for external government funding agencies, promptly resolving compliance inquiries, escalating material risks to the Budget and Contracts Director, and managing necessary M/WBE reporting structures.

• Lead award closeout activities to ensure year-end spending aligns with strict cutoff periods; prepare all primary documentation, audit trails, and schedules to support agency-wide and desk audits.

• Play a lead role in the preparation and execution of the agency’s Single Audit, including preparing the Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards (SEFA) and ensuring its accuracy, completeness, and integrity.