Service Areas Program Review Template for Academic Year 2013‐2014 (fields will expand as you type) Please provide a concise response to all questions, and include relevant details in direct support of your responses. Bulleted lists may be used to clearly organize information. Section 1 ‐ Program Information 1.0 Name of Program: Business Office Date: 11/14/13 1.1 Program Review Authors (include names and campus locations): Carla Spalding, Doug Edgmon 1.2 Program Director Signature: Date: 1.3 Vice President Signature: Date: 1.4 Primary Function: Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Fiscal Management, Budgeting, Financial Reporting, Student Financial Record Maintenance, Cashiering. 1.4.1 State briefly how the program functions support the college mission: Facilitates acquisition of resources needed to accomplish mission, goals, plans and operations, provides financial and budgetary data to departments and programs so that they can accomplish their goals and carry out their operations, and facilitates student financial transactions. 1.4.2 Program highlights/accomplishments: timely submission of most Board Reports enabling board to make timely informed decision on behalf of the district, timely data analyses and creation of financial and budgetary information needed to help prioritize use of resources to most effectively meet goals outlined in the strategic plan and annual plan. 1.4.3 Program Data: # of Full Time Employees (actual at 6/30/13) 2011‐2012 7 # of Part Time Employees (perm at 6/30/13) 2012‐13 5 2011‐2012 2 2012‐13 0 Personnel Budget (Actual Expenditures) 2011‐2012 $528,313 2012‐13 $392,258 Discretionary Budget (Actual Expenditures) 2011‐2012 $158,732 2012‐13 $457,977*inclu
des District Wide cBusiness Office Program Review 111413.docx 3/12/2014 Page 1 Exp. For banking fees and bad debt expense and audit expense, not included here in 2011‐12.
Section 2 ‐ Data Analysis 2.0 List Service Area Metrics/Indicators and provide information on changes over time (Steady/Increasing/Decreasing, etc.) 2.1 Metrics/Indicators Expenditures over budget? If so, did the overage result from poor budgeting or poor management of resources? Has the business office completed budget planning for 14‐15? Any Chancellor’s Office reports over 10 days late? Any Board Reports over 10 days late? Are all Business Office Board policies and Administrative procedures up to date, having been reviewed and/or revised within the last 3 years? Have monthly budget‐to‐actual reports been reviewed and reported to the Board? Has the Business Office reviewed last year’s:  Program Review?  Needs Addendums? cBusiness Office Program Review 111413.docx 2011/12 2012/13 Observations (steady/increasing/decreasing) Over Budget Over Budget Over budget due to poor budgeting in the bad debt expense and bank charges line items. In Process In Process Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes CCFS 311 was filed late due to vacant positions. Policies are either up to date or are in the queue at College Council for review. Yes Yes Yes Yes Satisfactory, Unrestricted General fund reports have been reviewed and reported. In the future this will expand to include periodic District Wide reporting. Many items listed as goals in the most recent program review remain in progress, including document imaging, comprehensive procedure manual, revised CalCard 3/12/2014 The 2014‐15 budget planning will begin after January Governor’s Budget is released. At this time of the year we have typically prepared multi‐year forecasts that include 2014‐15. This metric needs to be revised. CCFS 311 was filed late due to vacant positions. Page 2  BPC actions on Needs Addendums? Were all division employee evaluations up‐to‐
date during last year‐end? Were any Cal‐Cards unreconciled after the payment due date? procedures, reduction in rate of uncollectable student debt, and timeliness of budget upload. Business Office managers are currently working to get current with employee evaluations. The Business Office staff continues to actively follow up on any un‐reconciled cal‐card statements, however due to staffing vacancies, some statements were reconciled after the payment due date. Yes In process Yes Yes Has the Division website been updated during the last year? Yes Yes Has document imaging been implemented in the division? Are there any outstanding financial audit findings? Has the county auditor/controller’s office provided reports on schedule and as required by the district in order to complete the district’s annual fiscal reporting? Has Unrestricted Fund equity been maintained at 5% or better? Were Datatel budgets loaded for unrestricted general fund by 7/31? Were Datatel budgets loaded for all other funds by 8/31? Has a monthly cash reconciliation been completed in the last 45 days? Were any accounts payable over 20 days late? Were any construction payments over 20 days late? Were payments over $100,000 made electronically? No No No No No Yes No Yes Satisfactory No No No No No No No No No No Due to staffing vacancies, the loading of budgets was delayed. Due to staffing vacancies, the loading of budgets was delayed. Due to staffing vacancies, not all of the cash accounts have been reconciled in the last 45 days. Satisfactory Satisfactory Yes Yes, with VP Exceptions rarely occur, but some are necessary due primarily approval of to vendor inability to accept electronic payments cBusiness Office Program Review 111413.docx 3/12/2014 Business Office reports have been uploaded regularly and other operational info such as the addition of the “Optional Fee Waiver Request Form”. Not implemented. Satisfactory Online access to county reports has been set up which has improved the timeliness of reporting from the county. Page 3 Has a monthly budget‐to‐actual report been distributed across campus in the last 60 days? No any exceptions No Preparing the reports is time consuming and tedious. Due to staffing vacancies none were distributed this year. Report Writer program that works with Ellucian may be a good way to accomplish this task efficiently. Has accounts receivable been maintained or Increased by Yes Maintained when enrollment fee increases and additional reduced relative to enrollment and tuition rates? $327,000 student fees are considered. 2.2 Describe how these changes affect students and/or the program: Substantial effort was required to reconcile accounts and close the 2013 fiscal year. Accreditation show cause and the need to close the District’s budget shortfall caused reorganizations and will change how the business office accomplishes its duties. The increased effort, coupled with staff shortages, resulted in year‐end closing activities taking more resources than planned which in turn pushed back the completion of many other business office activities like uploading budgets, processing monthly departmental charges for fuel and printing, and providing departments with budget verses actual reports. Effects on programs that the business office serves may include temporarily not having a clear picture of their financial condition, which could in turn cause them to hold back on expenditure of resources required to accomplish other programmatic goals. 2.3 Provide any other relevant information, or recent changes, that affect the program: One full‐time position was filled in the Business Office last fiscal year and two part‐time positions have been filled since year end. Unfortunately, other staffing vacancies have also occurred and there will be a retirement of a long term employee during this fiscal year that leaves us with a staffing shortage similar to last year. 2.4 Student Equity. Please comment on any current outcomes or initiatives related to increasing outreach, retention and student success of underrepresented students in your program. Not Applicable Section 3 –Critical Reflection of Assessment Activities (2011/2012) 3.0 Describe Service Area Outcomes Assessed or reviewed in the current cycle: The metrics indicated in section 2/1 were reviewed. The Business Office’s staffing and expenditure levels were evaluated to determine how we could most effectively accomplish our goals as a department with the resources available. 3.1 Summarize the conclusions drawn from the data and the experience of staff working to achieve the outcomes: The District continues to work through the accreditation issues, but we have solved the large structural budget deficit we faced last year. The additional accreditation work along with staffing vacancies again caused the Business Office to fall back on progress in meeting and improving on the indicators outlined cBusiness Office Program Review 111413.docx 3/12/2014 Page 4 in 2.1. Once vacant positions are filled and new staff members are trained the Business Office plans to improve on indicators noted in 2.1. 3.2 Summarize how assessments have led to improvement in Service Area Outcomes (top three.): 1. Assessment of banking processes and reconciliation difficulties led to the determination that the District should research alternatives for banking vendors. 2. Assessment of student refunds issued led to improvements in the review process, refund request process and increased communications with Financial Aid which resulted in more efficient and accurate student refunds issued. 3.3 (Optional) Describe unusual assessment findings/observations that may require further research or institutional support: Section – 4 Evaluation of Previous Plans 4.1 Describe plans/actions identified in the last program review and their current status. What measurable outcomes were achieved due to actions completed. Action plans may encompass several years; an update on the current status, or whether the plan was discarded and why. Click here to view completed program reviews from last year. Actions Current Status Impact of Action (describe all relevant data used to evaluate the impact) Delinquent debts In process Collection agencies have been engaged to more aggressively collect delinquent debts. Balance the budget and address the structural deficit Complete 2013‐14 budget is balanced and structural deficit has been corrected. Fill Vacancies In process Some have been filled, others have gone vacant. It is clear from the indicators assessed in 2.1 that we need to continue to diligently work to fill vacancies. Update Business Office website to include all In process Some forms have been provided, but there are cBusiness Office Program Review 111413.docx 3/12/2014 Page 5 forms and descriptions of all business office operations relevant to other departments. more that would be useful as evidenced by the frequent questions that we receive from other department staff on processes. Convert storage and filing of contracts and insurance docs to electronic format No Completing this task requires converting to Softdocs first. Bus Ofc is in the queue to convert, but exact date is not set yet. Dispose of old documents that are no longer needed, or scan and destroy documents that are needed. In process Documents are being disposed of. Due to vacancies, this task is remains in process. 4.2 (If applicable) Describe how funds provided in support of the plan(s) contributed to program improvement: Section – 5 Planning 5.1 Program Plans Based on data analysis, learning outcomes and program indicators, assessment and review, and your critical reflections, describe the actions to be taken for the 2013‐2014 academic year. Use as many rows as you have actions, and add additional rows if you have more than 5 actions. Please number all rows that you add. Please be specific. This section and section 6 should include a detailed justification so that the resource prioritization committees understand your needs and their importance. * Not all actions in this program plan section may require resources, but all resource requests must be linked to this section. 5.1 Program Plans Action # Action to be taken: List the specific action to be taken in enough Relationship to Institutional Plans Include the specific plan and action item relevant to your cBusiness Office Program Review 111413.docx 3/12/2014 Expected Impact on Program/Student Learning Describe the expected impact in a way that someone outside the program can Page 6 Relationship to Assessment Include all assessment results Resources Needed (Y/N) A yes here requires a detail so that someone action to be taken.
outside of your area can For example: Annual Plan 2013‐
understand. 2014 Theme: Persistence; or Goal 1: Student Success: EP.1.6.2 Develop a plan for narrowing the achievement gap for underrepresented student populations. 1 IIIB.1. The institution provides safe and sufficient physical resources… SP 3.2 Improve Operational Fill vacancies Efficiencies understand. The impact should be measurable. Will allow for improved outcomes Update business 2 office website to include all forms and descriptions of all business office operations relevant other departments. 3 Convert storage and filing of contracts and insurance docs to electronic format. SP 3.2 Improve Operational Efficiencies. efficiency in the business office will allow us to be more responsive to student and programmatic needs 4 SP 3.2 Improve Operational Efficiencies cBusiness Office Program Review 111413.docx 3/12/2014 Will allow for improved outcomes Improving overall Page 7 corresponding request in the next section. that indicate that this action will yield the desired impact on the program. If the assessment has yet to be conducted, explain when and how it will be conducted. After the reorganization, vacancies have had a stronger negative impact on meeting Administrative Services’ mission. Making forms and process descriptions available online will reduce number of calls and visitors to business office and will increase staff time to work on other duties No Will allow for improved outcomes No No additional resources 5 6 5.2 Provide any additional information, brief definitions, descriptions, comments, or explanations, if necessary. Section 6 ‐ Resource Requests 6.0 Planning Related, Operational, and Personnel Resource Requests. Requests must be accompanied by an action plan in the above section. Requests should include estimated costs. Submit a support ticket if you do not know the estimated costs. If you are requesting personnel resources, you must also include the “Request for Faculty or Staffing” forms, located at inside.redwoods.edu/program review. Submit one form for each request. Additional Instructions: 
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Put down the full amount you are requesting in the “Amount” column. Put down the annual amount of any ongoing or recurring costs in the “Annual Recurring” column. For example, a personnel request for a permanent position might show an Amount of $30,000 and an Annual Recurring Cost of $30,000. A request for equipment might show an Amount of $5,000 and an Annual Recurring cost of $200. A professional development request might show an Amount of $800 and a recurring cost of $0. If you have a grant or some other source of funding, include in the “Request” column a brief description of the source of funds and the dollar amount that is expected to be covered by the other source and if the other source covers any of the annual recurring costs. Note in the “Request” column if this is a repeat request, and how many times you have submitted this request. The item number must match the corresponding action # from section 5. Add rows as necessary. Type of Request (Check One) Action # $ Planning Operational Personnel Professional use # To be Development Amount
cBusiness Office Program Review 111413.docx 3/12/2014 Page 8 $ Annual Recurring Costs Contact Person (Name, above Request Describe your request here in a way that someone outside the program can understand. reviewed by Prioritization Committees of the Budget Planning Committee To be reviewed and grouped by Associate Deans. To be reviewed by Faculty Prioritization Committee. email, phone) To be reviewed by the Professional Development Committee 1 Report writer add‐on to Datatel x 20,000 10,000 2 Check printer and softdocs implementation in Datatel x 25,000 4,000 3 Temporary employee to document business office practices x 15,000 0 x 5,000 0 x 6,000 6,000 4 5 Computer station in lobby for student use Student ambassador to help students use lobby computer / assist with student general questions. Lee Lindsey x4172 Doug Edgmo
n x4148
Doug Edgmo
n x4194
Doug Edgmo
n x4194
Doug Edgmo
n x4194
Section 7‐Author Feedback Provide any constructive feedback about how this template or datasets could be improved. 1.4.3 needs clarification, I know by trying to help other departments gather that information that it is not clear to everyone what should be included here. Should it be budgeted or actual, or how do you handle partial year changes in personnel. If a 1.0 vacancy is filled in January is that .5 full time employees for the year for example. cBusiness Office Program Review 111413.docx 3/12/2014 Page 9 How much do you agree with the following statements? (mark your choice with an x )
Strongly Somewhat
Somewhat Strongly
Neutral
Agree
Agree
Disagree Disagree
This year’s program review was valuable
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in planning for the ongoing improvement
of my program.
Analysis of the program review data was
useful in assessing my program.
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[x ]
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Section 8‐ PRC Response by section (completed by PRC after reviewing the program review) 8.0 The response will be forwarded to the author and the supervising Director and Vice President: S.1. Program Information: Completed. S.2. Data Analysis: Completed. Some indicators difficult to evaluate. PRC noted the many changes in the organizational structure. S.3. Critical Reflection of Assessment Activities: Completed. Assessment summary of two indicators. S.4. Evaluation of Previous Plans: Completed. Evaluation of previous plans focuses more on the status rather than the impact completion or non‐completion has had. Actions need to be linked to accreditation. S.5. Planning: Completed. Kudos: Planning included the proposed impact. No indication of resource requests are included in section 5 planning, but are included in Section 6. S.6. Resource Requests: Completed. Resource requests are not linked to Section 5: Planning cBusiness Office Program Review 111413.docx 3/12/2014 Page 10