STUDENT ACTIVITY FEE BOARD MEETING
Friday, September 16, 2011
3:30 p.m. 111 HUB
Minutes
Attendance:
Board Members:
Andrea Dowhower, Asst. VP for Student Affairs
Careen Yarnal, Faculty Senate Committee on Student Life, Penn State University Park
Peter Khoury, CCSG President
Catarina Moriera, CCSG Representative, Penn State Abington
Jon Lozano, GSA Representative
Kelly Terefenko, UPUA Representative
Rebecca Pennington, Director of Student Affairs, Penn State DuBois
Ryan Kocse, UPAC Chair
TJ Bard, UPUA President
Matthew J. Swatchick, Director of Student Affairs, Penn State Schuylkill
Jay Arcuri, Assistant Director, USA -Substitute for Mary Edgington
Brian Martinowich, CCSG Representative, Penn State Abington
Marika Merritt, CCSG Representative, Penn State Wilkes Barre
Absent:
Mary Edgington, Senior Director, Union and Student Activities
Welcome/Roll Call
Roll call was taken.
Adoption of the Agenda
A motion to accept the agenda was made by Jon Lozano and a second by TJ Bard. All were in
favor.
Adoption of the Minutes
A motion to approve the minutes from April 8, 2011 was made by Jay Arcuri and a second was
made by Jon Lozano. All were in favor.
Announcements by the Chair
There were none.
Public Comments (10 – 15 minutes)
No comments from the gallery.
Discussion Items
Items to be discussed:
1. Pg. 14 item from last year’s minutes on April 8, 2011
This verbiage was presented to the board at the 4/8 meeting.
Appropriations to hire a legislative lobby or to a registered student organization whose primary
purpose is to influence legislation. Recognized student governments may request or allocate
SAF Funds for travel costs (lodging, meals, and travel) involved with activities to advocate on
behalf of Penn State students’ concerns.
For information, we do not vote on items brought to the board at the same meeting that they are
presented. Items brought before the board can be discussed at the meeting and then voted on at
the next meeting.
This verbiage is to provide clarification to the lobbying section in the manual.
A motion to approve the proposed changes was made by TJ Bard and a second by Peter Khoury.
Discussion ensued.
Jay asked if a correction was made to the agenda to read “Recognized” which it has.
All in favor.
2. Items for introduction and initial discussion only.
The SAF was audited in the spring and summer by the internal audit office at Penn State. They
were looking at current procedures and checking to see if the SAF monies were being used
appropriately. They reviewed five campuses in the audit. Jay and Andrea both spent time
speaking with the auditors about the report. Six recommendations were made in the report, and
none caused great concern. Some of the issues have been worked on by other offices, but there
were some issues need to be dealt with by this board.
There are some allocation committees that are not taking minutes for their meetings. The audit
report recommends creating a minute template to be included in the SAFB manual. A draft of
that template has been created for the committee’s consideration. See attached.
A. There was an occasion that a campus did not use an allocation board to distribute money
for the summer, and we need to emphasize to all campuses that a board needs to be
appointed and then used to determine how funds are distributed.
B. There was a campus that was not tracking the spending of each request. The auditors
recommend that spending is tracked by request in order to ensure spending by project
does not exceed the amount allocated.
Brian and Catarina joined the meeting and Jay gave a quick overview of the discussion.
C. Jay discussed an item that focuses on University Park groups. When groups are charging
admission for a UPAC-funded event, proper policies and procedures were not always
followed. Groups cannot make a profit on an event, and revenues need to be deposited in
full into ASA. An improved tracking process has been established in which events that
charge fees are flagged and reviewed.
D. Lump sum funding for GSA and UPUA and the auditing for those orgs.
The auditors recommend that the SAFB develop formal audit procedures for conducting the
audit of lump sum allocation to GSA and UPUA annually. See attachment for the procedure that
will be used for this audit. The audit procedure has been moved from Jay’s office and the ASA
office and Melanie Bernier from the Finance Office will be completing the audits.
E. Last thing is a permanent budget adjustment.
The auditors are not comfortable with the end-of-the-year adjustments. For each campus, the
amount of SAF funds that are available for spending are based on the budgeted SAF amount.
Adjustments are made after the actual amount of SAF revenue has been posted to the revenue
accounts. The auditors noted that University Park received a large adjustment of approximately
$670,000 in late April. These funds are received too late in the year for them to be allocated in
the current fiscal year. The auditors want the money to be used in the year that it is collected.
Hence, they are asking the budget office to review the permanent budget amounts to reduce the
amount of money received late in the year.
Andrea stated that the budget office has a formula for holding back of the money. The budget
office continues to be conservative in their permanent budget amounts since the SAF is
determined based on enrollments. This recommendation that is outside of this board and rests
with the budget office. The budget office will be considering an adjustment to the permanent
budget for the SAF at University Park.
At some campuses, there are waivers given to students who then don’t pay the fee. For example,
the Abington campus’ nursing students never set foot on their campus and are waived of paying
the fee. If waivers are given, it does alter the funds available on a given campus. At UP, there
are not enough waivers given to impact the total SAF funds available.
Jon stated that he looked at the audit report and had a few questions. If implemented, when does
this procedure take place? Andrea stated that we have to respond and say, we will do the
following to respond to their recommendations. Our response makes the audit report final. In
six months, the auditors will review our progress in accomplishing the stated plans in the report.
Andrea has already notified the relevant organizations and campuses of these recommendations.
Also, the auditors did mention an error in the manual where it states that CCSG is listed as
receiving lump sum funding, which they are not. We may need to consider removing this from
the manual.
Jon asked about the audit procedure. Jay stated that the organizations need to provide greater
specificity about how funds are being spent. So, they list the committee who receives the funding
and then each event, program, or expense.
This template was created by the Melanie and Jill in USA, and they should be included in this
conversation.
Rebecca asked about the tracking of spending per request and if this can be done informally.
Andrea believes that it could be done in that matter. She spoke with the campus audited, and
they have gone back to tracking per event.
Andrea believes this is a communication process with the DSA’s etc. This communication
includes with campuses that are charging a summer fee. If they are having trouble allocating of
the funds through an allocation committee, they may need to decide whether they should be
charging a summer fee.
Matthew asked what SCT means on the minute template. Jay stated that this would define the
Student Contact Team. This is for the UP campus only.
Andrea sees it that there are two items that need committee action - a and e. The others should
have some discussion so that all the campuses are in alignment with the recommendations.
Timeline for the year.
This was sent with the agenda. See attached. This is the third year for the lump sum funding for
GSA and UPUA so we will need to review this. The legal services funding was also on a trial
basis for three years. Two and half years ago, the board approved a $2 increase to the SAF fee to
fund a student legal services office. Last year they came to the board to request a .25 cent
increase, which was denied. They will need to come to the board this year to request renewal
and will need present their funding request for the upcoming years.
This board also needs to schedule a timeline for determining the recommended change in the
SAF tiers. We need to get this done earlier in the year in order that the other budget and campus
processes can be accomplished in a timely fashion.
Andrea went through the timeline (attached) and asked for discussion. Jon suggested that at the
October meeting we discuss the auditing procedure and vote on it before the proposals for GSA
and UPA are brought forward.
Jay recommended that we vote on the minutes template at the next meeting. Andrea stated that
this is a good beginning of the committee’s work for the year and that there will be other things
that will need to be added.
Matthew asked about the CCSG funding piece. Andrea stated that that topic is not beyond the
scope of the committee at this point and that we will need to add this to the spring agenda after
others have reviewed the funding model. There are also some things in the manual that aren’t
clean that need to be discussed and addressed.
Jon asked if CCSG would be part of the audit. Any group who receives lump sum funding should
be audited.
Rebecca asked about their “flop” money. Jay stated that some campuses receive money from
central administration. The money is governed by general funds policies and not SAF fund
policies. Matthew asked again if a campus is giving lump sum funding then yes they will need
to be audited in some way to ensure those funds are being spent in accordance with SAF and
University policies.
As Rebecca stated, we are trying to have a broad template for the minutes so that it can be used
at all campuses. Brian asked if the auditors had a preference of who should take the minutes, and
Andrea stated that no they did not specify. Discussion ensued about what other campuses do for
minute taking.
Ryan will talk to those who are taking minutes at the next two UPAC meetings to see if they
have any suggestions on the template proposal. Please share with everyone on your campuses so
that they may be able to offer suggestions.
We will invite Melanie and Jill to the next meeting for discussion on the audit procedures.
The CCSG meeting will be Hazelton in January. Should the SAF Meeting be changed or should
it stay on the same date? Peter stated that they have a Polycom at Hazelton. Heide suggested
using a meet-me meeting by phone, and Marika stated that it is difficult to know who is talking
when on the phone. Brian stated that Polycom is confusing as well. Matthew asked about
holding the meeting at Hazelton, and Andrea stated that it would be difficult to have the UP
people get to Hazelton. We can discuss later whether to cancel the meeting or move the meeting
closer to that time.
One item left on the table from April was the Adult Learner subcommittee.
The issue of providing access to SAF funded activities or discounts for family members of adult
learners was a topic of conversation at the end of last year. We were unsure about where this
may be an issue. The campuses don’t perceive this to be an issue for them. Jon stated that this is
a very complex issue. Jon has talked to some grad students about this that could be considered
adult learners.
Rebecca asked to be brought up to speed on this topic. Careen is on the Commission of Adult
Learners. If you are an adult learner, your profile could be completely different from that of a
traditional student. It may be financially difficult for an adult learner to purchase tickets to
events. An adult learner is able to purchase one ticket for themselves, and they are asking if it
would it be possible to purchase additional tickets for others in their family. Athletic tickets are
outside of this board. It would be good to have this board take a stand on this. Rebecca stated
that she has not had this issue at DuBios, and they have a 35% population of adult learners at
their campus. This discussion could pose a management issue and reiterated that some events
are just for students who pay the SAF.
A subcommittee needs to be created to discuss this. Jon will head this committee. The goal
should be what the issue is and where would adult learners families be impacted by this and how
would students, who are paying the fee, be impacted by increasing access of family members,
who do not pay the fee.
Jay stated that something that would be beneficial is to identify the other campuses that have a
large adult learner population and see how they are handling this. Marika stated that this was
discussed at a CCSG meeting, and the conversation was difficult and without any conclusions.
Kelly will join this committee. Matthew will get feedback from the DSA’s from the campuses,
and Rebecca will provide information for her campus. Jon will get a hold of Heide to set up a
subcommittee meeting. Please let Jon know if you are willing to help with this.
No recommendations to the VP.
No additional business.
A motion to adjourn was made by Jon Lozano and a second was made by Matthew.