Procedure for monitoring Federal Work Study (FWS):
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FWS awards will be recorded in SAFE in accordance with Peralta packaging guidelines.
A Student must have a Work Study award in order to be given a work assignment.
Peralta Financial Aid Offices will set up an internal tracking spreadsheet based on FWS awards.
All students receiving a Federal Work Study award will be recorded on the tracking sheet based
on the monthly timesheet data.
When salary posts in PeopleSoft, the monthly totals will be compared.
As the legacy programmer extracts the detail from PS Payroll for upload to SAFE, each FAO will
compare their internal spreadsheet to the PS extract.
FAOs will request a PAK-5 on a regular basis to reconcile to internal spreadsheet and PS payroll.
Discrepancies will be corrected through Payroll adjustments submitted to the College Business
Office.
Peralta District Director will require each FAO to report funding balances, or correction data on a
monthly basis.
Meeting compliance issues
With the return to SAFE legacy, financial aid offices have
returned to their traditional process of verification of all
compliance items.
In particular, it should be noted a new
Financial Aid Supervisor at Berkeley City College has provided a
higher level of quality leadership and understanding of Federal
and State regulatory requirements.
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Financial Aid Supervisors and staff will be required to attend Federal and State trainings and
Webinars; District Director of Financial Aid will be responsible for evaluation of staff
performance and compliance with all verification procedures.
On a monthly basis Financial Aid Supervisors will select a random file sample to audit for
accuracy and compliance.
District Director will meet with Supervisors on a regular (bi-weekly) basis to discuss office
performance;
New Financial Aid staff will be partnered with experience Specialists for intensive training.
As SAFE-Web system is configured, District Director will conduct District-wide meetings to train
staff; review processing and document intake; and review new product specifications.
It is recommended that Peralta District hire an Internal Auditor to review and maintain
compliance issues.
Collecting student refunds
Please remember to follow procedure to send me the refund money order(s) collected with your detailed
spreadsheet or memo attached. Fiscal will not post refunds or collection of overpayments until I sign off
on the spreadsheet.
In order to get back on track with the posting of "old recoveries", please follow these steps:
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If you are collecting an institutional refund from a student the school repaid and posted to SAFE
and COD, have the student bring a money order to the Financial AId Office to cover the
institutional refund. Send this to me with your detailed instructions, and FISCAL will credit the
collection back to your college account. You must identify the fund to which the institutional
refund will credit.
If you are collecting a STUDENT refund or recovery from a now closed financial aid year (that
would be anything prior to 2008-09), this should have been posted by the Financial Aid Office to
NSLDS, and then a collections referral letter sent to USDE Collections in Texas, so the
Department of Ed takes over the collection. The colleges and FISCAL are not in the collection
business.
For 2009-10, you should be preparing your USDE collections referral letters now.
If you need guidance on sending collections referrals to ED, Lawrence has some sample letters
he can share.
If you did not previously follow this procedure and a student shows up with a refund from a closed
year, please compose the collections letter to USDE and forward the student refund to
Department of Ed Overpayments office in Texas.
We are no longer going to be responsible or post collections from closed years.
Ordering and posting Institutional refunds.
Peralta Colleges should all be on the same page with RT24
District FISCAL has identified an account for Rt24 and other Financial Aid refunds.
Please use District funding code to requisition refunds to post to SAFE.
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Run SAFE report GP432 on a weekly basis: students dropping all classes
Using PeopleSoft add/drop Enrollment Request Search to determine last date of
attendance
Use FAA Access RT24 software to run report determining student overpayment and
institutional refund due
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Each student is recorded on a spreadsheet:
Name, SSN, Term for Refund, Amount of refund and warrant # in SAFE against which the refund
is debited.
This spreadsheet is sent with the requisition....and a copy to MaryBeth and Judy Lam.
Once a check is cut (vendor is Peralta District Financial Aid Account, #0000502858).... Judy Lam
will enter the refund against each student in SAFE..
DO NOT TRANSMIT the refund posted in SAFE to COD, as you will have already previously
posted this to COD according to the 30 day compliance requirement as soon as the refund is
calculated. This would be a duplication.....
Per discussion with Nancy yesterday.....you can either mark SA21 as DO NOT TRANSMIT....or
mark the transmission on SC21 as "ACCEPTED"
It is probably best to requisition all SAFE refunds once at the end of each term...so you don't
have to create several requisitions.
Immediately place an Institutional Refund hold in PS Service indicators on the student and send
student a letter to collect. Many students do repay.
Ask the student to repay via MONEY ORDER. The money order can be sent directly to Judy
Lam (with a memo of explanation for the posting) and she then posts the refund back to the
college account.
Collection of Student refunds
If college is collecting an institutional refund from a student the school repaid and posted to SAFE and
COD:
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Have the student bring a money order to the Financial Aid Office to cover the institutional refund.
Send money order to Judy Cohen with your detailed instructions about the recovery (e.g. amount
backed out of COD, Posted to SAFE, Budget account used for institutional refund)
After review and approval, FISCAL will credit the collection back to your college account. You
must identify the fund to which the institutional refund will credit.
For 2009-10, Student Refunds can still be posted to SAFE, and then transmitted with regular
COD reconciliation file. Use the same procedure as above to collect CURRENT student refunds.
If you are collecting a STUDENT refund or recovery from a now closed financial aid year (that would be
anything prior to 2008-09), this should have been posted by the Financial Aid Office to NSLDS, and then
a collections referral letter sent to USDE Collections in Greenville, Texas, so the Department of Ed takes
over the collection. The colleges and FISCAL are not in the collection business.
For 2009-10, you should be preparing your USDE Student collections referral letters now.
If you need guidance on sending collections referrals to ED, Lawrence has some sample letters he can
share.
If you did not previously follow this procedure and a student shows up with a refund from a closed year,
please compose the collections letter to USDE and forward the student refund to Department of Ed
Overpayments office in Texas.
We are no longer going to be responsible or post collections from closed years.
Requisitioning Institutional Refunds
We now have a District account set up for Institutional refunds for RT24.
Before you requisition Institutional refunds, please send me your spreadsheet so I can review data you
want posted to SAFE. I will review and confirm back an OK to requisiton your institutional refund.
On the Spreadsheet, please indicate:
Student Name, SSN, TERM, Amount of refund, SAFE check # against which refund is to post.
Make sure a copy of the spreadsheet is sent to Judy Lam. Once the refund check is cut for the District,
she will post your refunds to SAFE.
If you have already backed out the Institutional refund from COD, mark SA21 with "X": DO NOT
TRANSMIT.
Place an instituional Refund Service Indicator on the student in PS.
If the student happens to return again this year and clears his or her account, all future reconciliation data
will have to be manually posted to COD.
Please make sure you have all SAFE Reports generated (Students dropping all classes) on file for
auditors.
Please have a Federal RT24 worksheet on file for every student who completely withdrew from class.
Requesting Transfer Credits
Your college information sheet should ask if the student attended another college outside
Peralta District….(INDICATE NAME OF COLLEGE)
Second Question: Do you plan to use transfer credits toward a Degree or Certificate at your
Home College? YES__________ NO__________
If the student indicates not plan to use transfer credits, you do not need to request a
transcript. IF YES, student must submit copies of transcripts for evaluation of degree
applicable credits.
DOING NOTHING about outside transcripts is not an option! YOU MUST INQUIRE AND
DOCUMENT !
You will be required to ask for this information. If, when preparing to graduate the student
produces an outside transcript…..then the student may lose aid eligibility for the final year at
Peralta…..could possibly be assessed a refund if it is found in that final term, the student
actually attempted over 90 units. You would not have to go back to prior years, since we
assume the decision was made in that final year.
We all need to be following the same procedure. The information is in our handbook. I spoke
at length with USDE Compliance Division about outside transcripts….it has been an ongoing
CCCSFAAA topic.
Late adds or reinstatement to class
If the student has been attending class all semester and is adding ...then ask for a
signed note from the instructor confirming the student late add.
This would also be the case if a student was dropped and then reinstated...get an
instructor signed note.
For drops...there can be no back-dating. Judy