SFAC/IRA Training Planning Meeting
Friday, Sept. 20, 4-5p, Alexander Valley
AGENDA
1. Welcome (Co-Chair Childers)
2. Introductions
3. Review Fees Presentation
4. Review Binder
5. Review Meeting Schedule
6. SFAC Action Item: Review of Bundle Proposal
MINUTES
SFAC Members:
- Elias Lopez, Designee for VP for Student Affairs, and SFAC Co-Chair;
- Leonel “Leo” Navarro, Designee for AS President;
- Emily Miller, AS VP of External Affairs; (absent)
- Arden Childers, AS Vice President for Finance; SFAC Co-Chair
- Katryna Johnson, Student at Large;
- Melissa Ann Kadar, Exec VP of AS
- Laura Watt, Chair of the Faculty;
- Dr. Hollis Robbins, Dean, School of Arts & Humanities as designee for Provost, VP for Academic Affairs;
- Elizabeth O’Brien, as designee for Joyce Lopes, VP for Admin. & Finance.
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 (SFAC Support Staff)
- Laura Monje-Paulson, Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs (via phone)
- Hilary C. Smith, Research Services & User Experience Librarian; Student Affairs Committee Rep
IRA Committee Members:
- Lisset Caballero, Student at Large
- Sergio Canavati De La Torre, Faculty, Business Administration
- Arden Childers, AS VP for Finance
- Christina Gamboa, Staff to the Committee
- Katryna Johnson, Student at Large
- Melissa Kadar, AS Executive VP
- Alexander Kahn, Faculty, Music
- Mike Ogg, Director of Continuous Improvement
- Anna Reynolds-Smith, Administrative & Financial Planning Director for Student Affairs
- Katie Robinson, Sr. Director of Budget, Administration and Finance
- Jordan Rose, Faculty, Nursing
Meeting commenced at 4:06 p.m. by Arden Childers, Co-Chair of SFAC.
- Welcome
Childers welcomed and thanked everyone for being there on a Friday afternoon.
- Introductions
Childers and Lopez will co-chair the SFAC; Melissa Kadar will chair IRA committee.
Each person present introduced themselves by stating their name, pronouns, and department.
- Review Fees Presentation
EO 1102 provides guidelines for various categories of fees.
Childers presented first few slides which covered:
- Category II and III fees must be reviewed by SFAC and make recommendations to the president.
- Category V and IV fees are reviewed as informational.
- Explained membership and charge to SFAC
- Explained membership and charge to IRA
Then Katie Robinson spoke on the different categories of fees. Several laws and policies dictate how fees are structured. EO 1102 requires that each campus submit a report to the Chancellor’s Office about their campus fees.
Category 1 fees are application fees and tuition and are established by the CSU Board of Trustees.
Category II fees are also mandatory fees in order to be enrolled at the university. Once established, Presidents are then further delegated to adjust these fees. SSU passed a referendum to apply an automatic CPI to all fees.
Category III fees are course fees for state-support instruction. Provided examples.
Category IV fees are fees for services, use of facilities, or fines that are collected through state-supported operations. Does not need to come through SFAC. Provided examples.
Category V fees are charged by self-support operations. Housing does not need to come to SFAC to set housing rates for the year. Fees collected must be spent on the expenses specifically for what they were charged for.
Category VI is the SIRF, Student Involvement Resource Fee. We collect on behalf of this organization.
IRA is more interested in Category II fees, and SFAC reviews II and III fees.
Avery: Cost recovery are funds that are recovered for services provided by the university to self-support programs. Avery reviewed university budget revenue. Campus based fees make up about 9% of the budget. Category V fees make up about 20% of the budget. Student fees comprise a majority of the budget so these committees are integral to oversight of these fees. Administration and Finance has oversight of Category I, II, and V fees, and they report on I-V fees to the Chancellor’s Office. No balances on record of $15k or more for course fees. Financial Services manages Category III and IV fees. Each fee has a corresponding trust fund. Seawolf Services posts the current fees on the website and makes sure they are up to date.
O’Brien: Reviewed an example of one semester of fees and what they were for. All students pay these fees. Non-residents and graduate students pay more fees. Students can opt out of SIRF fee only.
She then went over examples of course fees. The Course Fee policy includes procedures to administer a course fee. There are ranges for course fees set by the Chancellor’s office. There is an application process, and a trust fund agreement form for course fees. (item 10a in training binder)
Avery: SFAC created guidelines to audit course fees on a two year cycle. They look at balances and will audit courses that expend less than 50% of the fees they collect as well as half of the course fee funds in year one and the other half in year two.
Reynolds-Smith: IRA split off from the Student Fee Advisory Committee as a sub-committee a couple of years ago. This allowed SFAC to focus on course fees audits and IRA to focus on IRA fees and the application, distribution and assessment process. IRA is a category II fee, $260/semester. It is a fee to enhance the curriculum and educational experience. (such as for a guest speaker). Four permanently funded programs are funded from IRA fees. The remaining funds are allocated to other programs. SSU has established a list of prohibited expenses.
She then showed the IRA allocations for 2019/20 and reviewed the IRA application process and timelines. Continuing programs are assessed for student impact and program outcomes. IRA funding is intended to be used up each year. Any remaining funds are swept back into the IRA pool sometime in early August.
Dickson: Talked about the process for establishing a permanent fee. We can only establish another fee upon referendum or alternative consultation.
Childers: Send questions about the presentation to Sue Hardisty or Anna Reynolds-Smith.
Review the binders on your own and bring your questions to first meeting of your committee.
Lopez thanked presenters for their work on the presentation.
Watt: Asked to have binder materials in a Google Drive folder. Gamboa will create the folder and put the binder materials, fees presentation and meeting schedule in this folder. Other documents will be added throughout the year.
Watt asked if she needed to send a proxy when she was unable to attend meetings. As chair of the Student Affairs Committee, Smith suggested she might be a good proxy for Watt. Watt agreed.
IRA members dismissed at 5:00 p.m.
Lopez then introduced a memo from the Strategic Enrollment Management Plan Task Force and a summary of a proposal to the SFAC. Enrollment is down so they are considering strategies to help increase enrollment. One strategy which the task force proposes to SFAC is to reduce the deposit that students are required to pay in order to enroll at SSU.
When a student enrolls, they have to pay a bundled fee which is the Orientation Fee, the Enrollment Reservation Deposit (ERD) and the Housing Down Payment fee.
Current bundled fee is $755 but the proposal is to reduce it to $605 by reducing the ERD from $200 to $50. At a later time, they will also recommend that we unbundle the fees so students can pay each fee separately at different intervals rather than all at once. These fees go to real costs so this is just a reduced pre-payment plan. This initial proposal is the first step in making it easier financially for students to enroll. Some students will pay these fees at multiple campuses. The next step is to look at the competitiveness and see if reducing these fees, and unbundling them will help students to commit to SSU. We started bundling in 2010. Watt asked to change item # 4 to make it clear that this is not a reduction in fees, but rather a reduction in the deposit amount.
The number of applications have declined and this is a nationwide trend. The task force feels this will allow SSU to be more competitive to a broader array of students. Leo asked about the hardship process and Lizzie answered that we do work with students on payment plans and said we’ll do better at marketing this.
The Stay on Track website provides information about ERD Hardship option.
Childers asked for a vote on the proposal to reduce the deposit amount. Members approved unanimously, 8 - 0.
Meeting adjourned at 5:22pm.
Minutes submitted by Sue Hardisty.