Texas Higher Education System Generic Building Componentization Guidelines

Introduction

As of September 1, 2001, state agencies are required to implement accounting changes required by Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) Statements 34 Basic Financial Statements and Management’s Discussion and Analysis for State and Local Governments and GASB 35, Basic Financial Statements and Management’s Discussion and Analysis for Public Colleges and Universities. Two key changes stemming from this implementation are the reporting of infrastructure assets as a separate class (NACUBO required reporting infrastructure with improvements other than buildings) and depreciation.

The passage of SB 482 by the 77th Session of Texas Legislature requires state agencies to componentize various elements of buildings in order to calculate and record depreciation of a building’s structural components, subsystems and equipment. This allows an acceleration of depreciation for those components whose useful life is expected to be less than the useful life of the building.

The purpose of these guidelines is to establish a uniform standard by which institutions of Texas Higher Education will report capital assets as buildings and building components or systems.