10/2/19 SFAC Minutes

SFAC Meeting Minutes

Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2019

4:00-5:00pm

Erin Fisher Room

 

AGENDA

  1. Welcome & Introductions (Elias and Arden)
  2. Discussion: Goals for the Year
  3. Review Course Fee Application Process (Erik)
  4. Discussion: Course Fee and IRA Application Guidelines for Faculty
  5. Expenditure Tracking (Audit)
  • Course Fees (Hayley Avery)
  1. Student Impact
  • IRA (Anna Reynolds-Smith, Christina Gamboa)
  • Course Fees (Erik Dickson) 

 

MINUTES

SFAC Members:

  • Arden Childers, AS Vice President for Finance; SFAC Co-Chair
  • Katryna Johnson, Student at Large;
  • Melissa Ann Kadar, Exec VP of AS;
  • Elias Lopez, Designee for VP for Student Affairs, and SFAC Co-Chair;
  • Emily Miller, AS VP of External Affairs;
  • Leonel “Leo” Navarro, Designee for AS President;
  • Elizabeth O’Brien, as designee for Joyce Lopes, VP for Admin. & Finance; 
  • Dr. Hollis Robbins, Dean, School of Arts & Humanities as designee for Provost, VP for Academic Affairs; (absent)
  • Laura Watt, Chair of the Faculty; (absent)
  • Hilary C. Smith, Research Services & User Experience Librarian; Student Affairs Committee Rep attending as proxy for Laura Watt

Non-Voting SFAC Members:

  • Hayley Avery, Budget Manager, University Budget and Planning 
  • Erik Dickson, Executive Director, Associated Students;
  • Susan Gutierrez, Director of Financial Aid; (absent)
  • Sue Hardisty, Administrative Assistant, VP for Student Affairs Office
  • Laura Monje-Paulson, Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs

Guests:

  • Anna Reynolds-Smith, Staff Support for the IRA Committee
  • Christina Gamboa, Staff Support for the IRA Committee

Meeting commenced at 4:00p.m. by Arden Childers, Co-Chair of SFAC.

  1. Welcome and Introductions

Childers welcomed group and thanked them for attending. Each person introduced themselves by stating their name, and working title. Some provided their pronouns and their role on the committee.

     2.    Goals for the year

  • Fulfill EO1102 to full extent
  • Measure and document student impact and have this information readily available
  • Audit course fees
  • Streamline IRA and Course Fee application process and develop guidelines for faculty so they understand the differences and know which funds to apply for
  • Develop a framework for how IRA funds and Course Fees are utilized

     3. Course Fee Application

Course Fees policy outlines the process:

  1. First consult with CFO,
  2. must be approved by School Dean and School’s Student Advisory Council,
  3. Provost must approve,
  4. then to SFAC for review and department presentation,
  5. finally, SFAC will make a recommendation to the President to approve or decline and explain why

Reviewed application form which serves a dual purpose: Follows process per policy and serves as trust fund agreement. Reviewed pieces to the form. Dickson noted there is no section for Provost to sign.

Action: Ask Financial Services to add a signature line for the Provost on the Course Fees Trust fund form.

The Course Fees Trust Fund Agreement form can now be signed electronically which helps to move it along to the next approver per the policy. Still, it can take a long time to route the form and present to SFAC. There was no new course fee approved last year due in part to an AS resolution committed to not approving any new course fees unless or until evidence that departments were not using course fees for operational expenses was provided. Thus the new course fee audit process. Hardisty noted the policy references the wrong form.

Action: Ask that the policy be updated to reference the correct form.

We would like to include in the process a method for assessing if the funds are being used as intended and approved. How do faculty know which type of funds to apply for? Course fee or IRA fee? There isn’t currently any written guidance on this other than what is posted on the SSU website.  IRA has a prescribed process. For Course Fees, faculty are referred to the Course Fee policy and to the Trust Fund Agreement form for the prescribed process.  It was noted that IRA fees are already being collected from students so it’s a matter of making decisions on how to allocate those funds to best serve the majority of students versus Course Fees which are additional fees to students in certain courses.

Course fees, once approved, do not require reapplication every year whereas with IRA funds, faculty must reapply every year. Existing programs do not have to re-present unless the committee asks them to.

Childers asked how the committee would go about developing guidelines that explain the differences between the two funding sources so faculty know which to apply for. Model UN has both an IRA award and a course fee. Maybe figure out why they have both? Is it due to a process issue? This may help us to delineate where one fee is needed over the over and this can help us to develop guidelines for faculty.

Action: Reynolds-Smith will try to find this information for the committee.

Avery wanted to clarify that a Trust fund is where we deposit monies that are collected from fees. Financial Services monitors expenditures to ensure they are in line with the trust fund’s intended purpose.

5.       Course Fee Expenditure

Avery explained how to interpret the Course Fee Balances 5 year data sheet. Revenue is a negative number. Sometimes courses get passed off to new faculty and they don’t know there is a course fee associated with the course. Last year FS worked with the scheduler to find out which courses have closed so they would know which trust funds to close out. No CPI is added to Course Fees, so any increases would be due to more students paying the fee, or an approved fee increase.

A member questioned RT091 and Avery explained it is a fee for students who are applying for the counseling program. It is not a course fee and should not be included in this list. She will remove it.

The second worksheet (Course Fee Data 5 yr (19-20)) is a list of course fees with average 5 year average spend down percentages. Balances from inactive courses are returned to its department operating fund. Sometimes departments need to save up for expensive equipment so that’s why they don’t spend down annually. These exceptions to the “funds must be expended in full each year” rule are noted and are permitted if the committee agrees it still complies with EO1102.

Avery also shared the E01102 report that is sent to the Chancellor’s Office each year end. This report shows revenue collected and ending year balances for all fee categories, except VI.

Childers asked for an expenditure report for Category IV fees. SFAC is charged to review Category Fees 1-5.  SFAC is also charged with sending an email to the Deans to ask about funds that are 50% or less spent down and why.

IRA (Anna Reynolds-Smith, Christina Gamboa)

Course Fees (Erik Dickson)

These items were tabled due to the time. SFAC will invite Anna and Christina to next meeting and put them first on the agenda.

Members were encouraged to ask staff to help with understanding any of the data or information that was shared at this meeting.

Adjourned at 4:58pm. Minutes submitted by Sue Hardisty.