FALL 2013 BAR MEETING
PIERCE COMMUNITY COLLEGE
OCTOBER 17TH AND 18TH, 2013
Thursday, October 17th
Welcome
Chair Jennifer Strother called the meeting to order at 10am
Sandra Braedt from Pierce went over housekeeping items
BAR Steering Committee - Review of Program Code Changes
Theresa Collins passed around current Mentor list and asked people to update and make changes so we
can have a current list of BAR Mentors on our website.
Program Code Changes Discussion led by Charlene Rios. Charlene addressed outstanding questions that
are still coming up.
- Work Study. Prog/Org and Fund is the question. There isn’t really a good clear answer. Joann said
that state work study should be 850 and federal should be 145. OFM has no interest in holding us
to a specific fund but we should all be consistent and code work study in this way.
- How do we stay consistent with any new programs that come on Board?
o Most of our grants come through SBCTC, so Joanne is asking their program folks to inform
us of the program code when grants are issued. If we don’t receive guidance, ask Joanne
and Jason Gordon for an answer. BAR would like to receive this info on annual grants and
new programs.
- We need to get rid of 145-100-xxxx codes. No plans to inactive this program code so we can still use
it. But, we should be trying to move most stuff in there. Ok to continue to use program 100 for internal
transfers, fund balance, etc.
- Tutoring. It can go either way between instructional or student services depending on how we are
organized. Depends on who oversees it. But if it is not linked to a class and it is just a tutoring center,
maybe we want it in student services. But if it is linked to a specific class, it should probably be in
instruction.
Is there a plan for running error reports to see how we are doing? Or is there an official plan to see if
the colleges have completed this project so we can wrap this issue up?
- Joann said no plan, but she is thinking about reconvening the task group on this. Maybe
meeting in March to discuss the topic and keep some ongoing high level review on this
topic. But it is not intended that they will test every college on this project. Also, as they go
forward if SBCTC does any reviews of data, they might catch some inconsistencies and
contact us to let us know.
Joann said she would be willing to keep a consolidation of all notes/decisions made on this topic about
specific program code decisions.
Are we now going to start tackling revenue source codes and subobject codes going forward?
- Will probably discuss these items as we go through ctcLink. We think we are pretty
consistent on these already, so maybe it will not be as big of a project.
- January BAR Meeting will include a brainstorming on this topic.
Great WA Shake Out Drill
We took part in the safety drill for Earthquakes and evacuated the building
BAC Work Group Report on Accreditation Requirement for Financial Statements
Presented by Joann Wiszmann, Interim Director of Accounting Services at SBCTC
Joann has a Power Point Presentation on this topic that she will send out.
Key Topics:
- Accreditation Standard Change
- Additional Benefits of Financial Statements
- Accreditation Cycle/Pilot Group
- Proposed Financial Statement Audit Cycle
- Estimated Audit Costs
- General Approach
- What are the General Financial Statements?
For each year of operations, our financial statements now have to be audited. But we don’t have to be
audited every single year.
We have never prepared financial statements in the past, so this is new for us.
The new accreditation standard only refers to financial statement audits, they do not review Single
Audits, accountability and compliance audits, performance audits, etc.
The Statewide Single Audit will not be impacted by the colleges preparing their own independent
financial statements.
GASB 34 is for public entities. Initially when GASB 34 came out, colleges were exempt. So GASB 35 now
includes colleges and universities making us subject to GASB 34. So as a result, we will be preparing
GASB 34 statements, because they are the same thing.
Benefits of audited financial statements include providing our Board with financial health information,
compare financial measures with other colleges, provide financials to grantors and banks, and make
information available to the public.
Do we want to show our entire Board the financial statements or maybe consider having a couple Board
members review the statements and report back to the entire Board?
All 7 colleges that received an Accreditation recommendation letter to date will be pilots and prepare
financial statements this fiscal year for 2012-13. There are 8 pilot colleges (added a Technical Colleges)
and the workgroup includes SBCTC Staff, BAC members, Key BAR members, BAR Chair and a ctcLink
representative.. Then, we will be audited every two years with two groups of 15 colleges.
In year 3, Tacoma will be the first to prepare financials using ctcLink. We are hoping ctcLink has a
module that will prepare GASB 34 statement information for us. But for now, we are focusing on how
to do this with FMS Data.
Question was asked about whether the accreditation commission will be satisfied with an every 2 year
audit cycle, or are we sticking our necks out again? That question hasn’t actually been posed to the
commission, because we are just telling them how we are going to satisfy the requirement. But the
commission has been told our plan, and we haven’t heard that they are not ok with that. Workgroup
will discuss whether we want to pose that question specifically.
The process to prepare the financial statements will be similar to IPEDS. SBCTC will prepare preliminary
financial reports for each of the colleges, and then we will be responsible for adding figures, checking
data, making adjustments, etc. SBCTC will provide checklists/instructions, but they aren’t sure exactly
what those will look like yet. SBCTC will also do the best they can to prepare a template for preparing
the Notes to the Financials.
Joann is unaware how long a college’s audit will take, but we are estimating 250 hours per district. SAO
charges $89 per hour, plus travel costs. We aren’t sure if the first year audits will take longer?
Pilot group is going to try to track the time it takes to prepare financials and go through the audit
process so we can report back to other colleges.
Joann’s power point includes links to other colleges financial statements so we can see examples of
what they look like.
Statement of Net Position (balance sheet), Statement of Revenues & Expenses (income statement), and
Statement of cash Flows. We are not preparing financials by fund, we are preparing Enterprise-wide
financial statements. We will also have financial statement Notes and Management Discussion &
Analysis.
AFRS Reporting is not the same as our FMS Financial Statements. So if we madean AFRS adjustments
(and did reversals in the new year), then we will expect that same entry to go on our statements as an
adjustment. We may need to keep track of AFRS and FMS adjustments separately.
Working Lunch – Creating a Healthy Communication Climate
Presented by Katherine Oleson, faculty at Bellevue in Communications
A power point presentation was provided
State Board Executive Director Update
Presented by Denise Graham. Marty Brown couldn’t be here.
There is a WACTC (President) task force for allocations that includes 13 presidents and commission
representation from BAC. They are looking at the way state funds are allocated to the colleges and will
be making recommendations to WACTC next July. Recommendation will then go to SBCTC in Fall 2014.
Current system was put in place in 2000.
We no longer seem to be in a budget reduction mode. New funding was added this year.
There is authority in the budget bill for SBCTC to increase tuition next year. If they raise it 2%, 1% would
need to go to financial aid. Denise’s prediction is that they will not raise tuition next year.
Megamations. Help on the way. Mike Scroggins at SBCTC-IT has offered up someone on his staff to be a
project manager for Megamations. That is what this project has been missing and he will be doing an
evaluation and making a recommendation. His focus is how Megamations will flow in to ctcLink.
Everyone is very thankful that we have Joann Wiszmann on board for 18 months!
Questions was posed to Denise about COLAs. There is a contingent 1% COLA in the back of the budget
that depends on our revenue forecast hitting a certain target. It currently excludes Exempt and Faculty,
but SBCTC will be asking for it to include these staff in their budget request if the revenue forecast is
met.
Receivables Management, Bankruptcy
Key 2 Recovery CEO, Doug Plummer
A power point presentation
When a student contacts us to make a payment plan on their debt, send them back to the collection
agency. That is what the agency is there for and they have access to more information about what type
of payments the person can afford.
If we are getting phone calls from students asking about their debt, or asking for verification of amounts
owed they weren’t aware of, those are good calls because that means our collection agency is doing a
good job of getting in contact with students.
Federal and Institutional debt are non-dischargeable in a bankruptcy case. The only way out is for the
student to prove a hardship.
Colleges should allow a student to re-enroll and release a transcript if they are in the middle of a
bankruptcy. The general consensus is they cannot be denied enrollment.
As a state organization, we are allowed to assess a collection cost. The collection agency does not
assess any cost, they can only charge fees on what they collect to the school. Collection costs equal the
amount of our college fee.
Make sure we have language on enrollment forms, handbooks, etc. stating that student would be
subject to collection fees, legal fees, etc. if they default on payments. Students have to agree to accept
these charges.
We must have permission from students to contact them on mobile phones. Most students no longer
have land lines, so we should probably make sure we are getting these permissions.
If we receive a bankruptcy notice from a student, we should send a letter asking to remove us from the
list of debtors.
PCI Compliance Competency
Presented by TrustWave Blake Penn
PCI Compliance is not optional. Everyone has to comply with PCI DSS at all times. Protects identify theft
and fraud. The PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of 12 requirements created to ensure the
secure handling of credit card information.
Three ongoing steps for compliance: Assess, Remediate and Report.
If you are in compliance with PCI, you are protected and may not have to pay fines if there is a breach.
Noncompliance with PCI DSS can result in:
- Fines and penalties
- Noncompliance fees from banks, usually monthly
- Financial costs to reverse damages in the event of a security breach.
- Higher cost to process credit card transactions.
- Stricter compliance requirements can be posed on a merchant after a breach – considered higher
risk.
We need to work closely with IT to address our PCI Compliance assessments and be successful.
Ryan Miller
Higher Ed Account Executive
949-932-1066
Rmiller2@trustwave.com
We are allowed to store card numbers, but there are rules in how it can be stored (encrypted, etc.). The
retention period and disposal policy for those card numbers needs to be documented. But the card
authorization number on the back cannot be stored. We are allowed to collect the authorization
number, but we just can’t store it.
These standards were not written for mobile devices – Square, Ipad with credit card swiper, etc.
Compliance has not caught up with this technology. If you are considering using this technology, contact
Trustwave to evaluate. A QSA can give you advice.
Friday, October 18th
BAC Report
Presented by Stuart Trippel – June and October BAC Meetings
Discussion of competency based education
Budget issues were a big deal at the meeting in June
Data Governance workgroup was still in organizing mode at June meeting
Wayne reminded them to spend minor works money by the end of the biennium
ctcLink Presentation by Barbara Martin. The schedule has changed from 5 waves to 4 waves.
Data Clean up going on – Spokane reduced their vendor table by 80%
1098-T fines from IRS. System wide proposed penalties was over 2 million dollars.
There is a cut to our SBCTC Allocations due to IT issues – 800k allocated across our system.
Data Governance Model has been approved and they are now working on the components.
CTCLink Update
Presented by Cindy Shaffer
She had a power point presentation for the update. All of their power points are on the State Board
website but she will send to the listserv as well.
Inactive vendors that we haven’t used over a certain period of time. Vivian Merdock, SBCTC-IT, wrote a
report that does this. You then check the error report and delete vendors you no longer use. This saves
data conversion when configuring ctcLink.
We will be using PeopleSoft version 9.2. It is a new software version that came out Spring 2013.
There was a change from 5 waves to 4 waves. So each wave is bigger and a little longer.
Initial thoughts on how HP and ctcLink will work together during migration – payroll may run in both
systems a few months. The plan is to take year-end balances from FMS and put those in to PeopleSoft
and we would use the new system at the begging of the fiscal year. We would close out the fiscal year
(July 13th month) in HP possibly. But, we will know more once the pilots complete – they aren’t sure yet
how all of it will work. Based on best practices, they want us to covert to the new system in May.
Bookstore is not included in the project scope, or food service. We all operate bookstores so differently
and some contract it out, so they decided not to include that option in our new system.
Colleges are being asked to clean up the following legacy data:
Student and employee bio/data was due by Oct 11th
Vendor tables by December 13th
The ctcLink listservs are open, make sure we are on these listservs. Website is ctclink.sbctc.edu.
Electronic Distribution of Financial Aid – US Bank Platform
Presented by US Bank’s Tal Vaadia, Jessica Sidla and Scott Smith
They offer 3 choices to students for receiving their funds – just like Higher One. Their student cards are
a Mastercard, rather than a Visa.
US Bank has 184 branches in the State of WA and approx. 700 surcharge free ATMs.
They are soon launching a new program just like Higher One where they mail cards to students. But,
they only mail cards to students who opt in to the US Bank account.
The current program that Bellevue and Everett use is an ID Card that is immediately issued on campus.
They try to provide the program at no cost, but they cannot guarantee that. They make their money of
transaction fees when students use their cards at merchants. And they hope that they retain our
students as long term customers and continue to bank with them.
The program allows students to withdraw cash at ANY bank once a month for no fee.
SBCTC Update – including Procurement Reform
Arnel Blancas – Budget Presentation
 IT Allocation reductions for IT Savings. 390k will be distributed among the colleges.
 Submitting supplemental budget request – high demand enrollment funds, AIR Washington,
budget for aerospace enrollments, 4.75million for student achievement initiative, requesting
funding for faculty increments, and informally they are requesting that all higher ed staff be
included in the 1% salary increase if revenues increase (right now this is only for classified).
Jason Gordon – updates on closing & other items
 Less adjusting errors this year than the year before. Most are due to and due from entries.
 Transfers on disclosure form were an issue this year. So just a reminder to us TC 023/024 for
transfers.
 Capital Asset Disclosure Forms. Beginning balances were incorrect due to some IT updates to
the SMART system.
 Make sure we include contract numbers on the federal indirect forms.
 OFM is questioning fluctuations of expenditures between the prior two years. He has been
sending these out to the colleges as they come up.
 Part of the CAFR state audit was to check cash balances so that is why we heard from the
auditor’s office on our bank reconciliations. They found no issues with that except that they
don’t think we are doing our reconciliations often enough.
 Close/Open reports. Jason is not sending out the year-end binders anymore, but he will be
mailing us the reports soon.
 FAM manual has had issues with links and copy/paste function and you couldn’t search the
manual, but it should all be fixed now. Let Jason know if there are any issues still.
Joann Wiszmann’s Update – she will send out her notes to the listserv later
 Cell Phone tax exemptions. Stipends that we pay on cell phones are tax exempt for federal
withholding and FICA. They are making a programming change in PPMS to allow us to treat
these stipends appropriately.
 COSO – framework for internal control. They released a new version last May and is effective in
December. If we have to do a risk assessment, it’s a really good tool.
 Department of Defense MOU – new one was released recently.
 DES Procurement Reform.
o New training requirement that was supposed to start in July of this year. This has been
delayed. DES is looking to hire an outside contractor to help with this and nobody
responded to their RFP. So they are now rewriting their RFP and we have no idea how
soon training will be available. But the law hasn’t changed, so there is still a date by
which we all have to be trained.
o Contract Reporting. A pilot group is testing the DES reporting tool. We will have to
report all contracts from January 1, 2013 on.
o Higher Ed has a separate statute for our purchasing authority. But it is not real clear
what all we can do on our own and what things we need DES approval on. There is
currently a consultant who is reviewing this topic and we will eventually have a
framework for compliance.
 Fiscal Health Measures. These are shared with BAC Members every year and they were just
recently sent out.
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1098Ts. Currently an issue with ITINS. These start with a 9, and our system is not allowing
these. They are making a programing change because this is putting the colleges at risk. If a
student does not give you their social security #, you still have to issue a 1098T. They are
looking at putting together a group to come up with best practices for 1098T reporting.
o There is an exclusion to the SBCTC-IT Code freeze for regulatory compliance. So maybe
the job can be revised to include parameters we need.
o We are not expecting a response from the IRS for 6-9 months, or even up to a year, in
response to our letters.
Laser Check Printing for Payroll checks. Colleges are beginning to transition. This allows us to
think longer term about the courier service, and possibly print them ourselves at the colleges if
SBCTC sends us an electronic file now that we have laser printers for AP. SBCTC will invoice us
at year-end for the amount of payroll checks they produce for us.
Megamations. What functionality does ctcLink already have to track this data. There is more
available in Megamations than in PeopleSoft. As reported by Denise Graham, someone has now
been tasked with this project to see where we go from here.
NACUBO has guidance on electronic financial aid disbursements to students. They have tips for
best practices.
Records Retention – Scan & Toss. Looking at Microfiche and whether we can get rid of this and
scan instead.
o Archiving means permanent records we can never throw away. If you scan these, you
cannot throw the paper away.
o Records Management we keep for some amount of time.
SAO Audits. Now they audit us based on topics. The next set of topics include health insurance
eligibility, which could be a review at the colleges, but we aren’t sure. Single Audit is going to
include Headstart, so if colleges have a Headstart program we could receive an audit review.
SBCTC Operations Reviews. They recently sent letters out describing the reviews for this year
and what colleges they will be visiting.
Burning Issues Discussion
Jennifer is going to send out the issues via the listserv and is hoping we all engage in these
conversations.
Minutes and Treasurer’s Report
Minutes were approved from the prior meeting
We have $668 in our account, so we will revisit dues later this year.
Wrap Up & Adjourn
Our next meeting will be held at SBCTC-IT as well as on WebEx.
Andrea Duboij from Bellingham Tech has left and she was the FMS Listserv manager. Clarissa Wolfe has
agreed to take this on.
Meeting was adjourned at 12:06.