SFAC Meeting
Wednesday, December 4, 2019
4:00-5:00pm
Bennett Valley Room
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
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
Meeting commenced at 4:06 p.m. by Arden Childers, Co-Chair of SFAC.
AGENDA
1. Approve Minutes of 11/20/19 meeting
Childers asked for corrections to the minutes before calling for approval. None opposed.
2. Course Fees Fund Purpose & Expenditure Types – Discussion (Hayley)
Avery referenced the 2nd tab in an Excel workbook which listed all course fees, their purpose, and allowable expenditures. She then turned to the tab with the spend down %. This sheet calculated how much of the money collected had been spent and what the spend down % was. The fund purpose and allowable expenditure types were obtained from the trust fund agreement form. When funds are expended, they are reviewed by Financial Services to make sure the expense type is allowable per the trust fund agreement form. Each year the trust fund forms are sent to the “owners” of the fund and they must verify that the allowable expenses are accurate and that the authorized signers are updated.
Childers reviewed the report and cross referenced the 50% or more spend down funds against the 5 yr DW Report. He suggested reaching out to those departments next semester to audit these funds and find out why the funds are not being spent.
Avery shared that in a prior year, a sub-committee of SFAC was tasked with contacting the Schools to get answers to why funds were not being spent. Dickson suggested SFAC choose a grouping, get the qualtrics form out to them, which would provide a qualitative report for SFAC and for the President. Dickson, O’Brien and Avery agreed to be on this sub-committee to accomplish this task. When Childers asked when they might be able to begin this work, Avery replied the end of January as the qualtrics form needs to be developed first.
Lopez asked if a course could have more than one course fee and Dickson and O’Brien replied that there is only one fee per course. If a course incurs additional expenses, they could apply to increase the current course fee to cover that additional expense.
3. Category IV Fees Fund Purpose & Groupings - Discussion (Hayley /Lizzie)
Category IV fees are fees for service such as a transcript evaluation fee and are not tied to a course.
Avery reminded the committee that some Category IV funds include fees that pay for employee salaries. She identified 3 programs that list salaries as an allowable expense (WEPT Fund, Student Orientation, Alcohol and Drug Educ Progam). She could separate out those personnel expenses to see what affect that has on the spend down %. As these are fees for service, consensus was that the funds should be fully expended. However, there are situations where the fund manager may reserve funds for a future expense. The towel fee is an example. This fund reserves a percentage of fees collected to save up to purchase new equipment in the future, such as a new laundry machine.
Members noted some discrepancies in the data sheets and Avery said she would make those corrections and put the corrected file in the shared folder.
Dickson suggested creating two qualtrics forms: (1) to serve as an application form for new or adjusted course fees and (2) to serve as an assessment tool for program review. Though the committee can begin with the funds that aren’t spending down, ultimately they will want to evaluate all course fees every year.
4. Approval Process for Category II Fees - Discussion (Erik)
Erik displayed a sample timeline of what it would look like to implement the process of establishing a Category II Fee.
The fee would need to be approved by the Chancellor. We would need to do a referendum which would advise SFAC and the President. A voter pamphlet must be produced 30 days prior to the referendum so it would need to come out on Feb. 4, 2020. It must include financial information about the fee and it must include pro and con statements. The process also requires consultation with other governance groups on campus (Academic Senate, Student Senate, etc.). A financial review must be conducted by the CFO which must include 2 years projected and 1 year actual financial data.
The President makes the final recommendation to the Chancellor. In an accelerated process you would start Oct. 9 and end April 17. The reality is the proposal to establish a course fee would have to be realized and vetted in one year (get presidential approval) and be ready to go through the referendum process immediately at the beginning of the following academic year.
There is also the alternative consultation process via focus groups but it is not the preferred process.
O’Brien noted that registration for Fall is April 13 so she feels the end of March is a more realistic end date for implementation the following year.
There is no regulation as to who can start the Category II fee process. The President has the delegated authority to establish Category II fees so if the president is not inclined to approve, there is no point of going through with the referendum/ alternative consultation process.
The subject of Student Success Fees came up and Dickson shared that Chancellor White visited all campuses to get information about Student Success Fees because campuses were abusing this type of fee and students were complaining.
When state funds to the campuses are sparse, that’s when interest in establishing fees comes up.
Childers asked what would be involved in outlining this process. We can utilize the timeline he established as an example and post it on the website. It’s good to let the Budget office know in October because that’s when they begin strategic budgeting for the next fiscal year.
5. Review of Ongoing Work: (Discussion)
- SFAC website to include –
- Links to course fees webpage, IRA website, Fees PPT Presentation, etc. (done)
- Course Fees Application and Audit Processes
- Recommendations from SFAC on approval process
- Criteria for IRA and Course Fees
SFAC would like to use the qualtrics form in the audit process this year so Dickson and Hardisty were asked to complete development of these forms and updating the SFAC website with the course fee application and assessment process by April 1.
They also asked to include descriptions of the various fee types on the website. (done)
6. Spring Meeting Schedule
Childers asked student members to update their calendars to assist Hardisty with finding a standing meeting time in the Spring semester for SFAC to meet. Once updated, they were asked to let Hardisty know so she could schedule the Spring meetings.
Childers concluded the meeting at 4:52 pm.
Minutes submitted by Sue Hardisty.