IASFAA Executive Council Teleconference Minutes
October 3, 2013
Attendees: Gisella Baker, Todd Brown, Lisa Croat, Chris Ditter, Julie Dunn, Kristi Fuller, Amy Gaffney, Heather Gaumer, Greg Geistkemper, Julie Haack, Mary Jacobsen, Steve Loven, Tristan Lynn, Joan Meyer, Amy Norton, Chad Olson, Jen Sassman, Carolyn Schwendeman, Karen Snyder
The meeting was called to order by President Jen Sassman at 10:19 a.m.
Because Sara Harrington was ill and unable to send out the August minutes, there was no approval of the August telenet.
Treasurer’s Report – Greg Geistkemper/Beth Rinderknecht
Total Assets $132,133.09
Total in Money Market Account $72,133.09
IASFAA currently has 165 paid members with income of $12,375 and 174 members. The 9 additional memberships to be paid will bring in another $675. Of the 165 paid memberships, 82 were paid with credits card. IASFAA typically sees an increase in paid memberships when conference registration opens. Greg will monthly send to the committee chairs their actual vs budget expenses to chairs can keep better track of their committee’s spending. It is taking a little longer than anticipated due to outdated Policy and Procedures instructions on how to enter info into Quickbooks. Also working on getting info to accountant for tax preparation. There will be 1 CD maturing in December that will need to be decided on how to reinvest
Motion – Julie Haack made a motion to accept the Treasurer’s Report.
Second – Heather Gaumer seconded the motion.
Motion passed.
Officer’s Report
Past President – Heather Gaumer
I will be attending the MASFAA Conference in Indianapolis October 5 – 9, 2013. The MASFAA Board Meeting will occur on the 5th so if you have any ideas, thoughts or concerns that you would like me to take to the MASFAA Board please let me know. State Representatives have been asked to lead the Sector Meetings that occur at 4:30pm on Monday of the conference, so let me know if you have topics you would like discussed during that meeting. I attended the two Finance Committees to discuss budget issues.
President – Jen Sassman
A proposed By-Law change was shared with the membership about 30 days ago with regard to a lower membership fee for student members. An electronic vote will take place via the listserv October 4-October 14. Please take a few minutes to vote and encourage others to do so as well.
Some of you may already be aware that Renee Gunderson had to resign her position as Newsletter chair and Awards co-chair due to her leaving the financial aid profession. I wish Renee the best in her new position at Luther College. I am pleased to welcome Carolyn Schwendeman as chair of the Newsletter Committee. I want to thank her for jumping right in to get the fall newsletter ready in a matter of a few weeks. Thank you Carolyn! As president elect, Julie Haack will soon be appointing a replacement for the Awards co-chair position. Once we have a complete executive council again, I will send a new roster out to the group.
I will be traveling to Indianapolis for the MASFAA Conference October 5-9, 2013. I will be hosting an “Iowa Dinner Night” on Monday, October 7th at Champions in the conference hotel. Thank you to Gary Adams for making those arrangements. If you plan to attend and have not RSVP’d yet, please let me know at your earliest convenience.
I want to ask that each of you begin preparing your report for the IASFAA Business Meeting that will take place on Friday morning of the November conference in Dubuque. This is your chance to inform the entire membership of the work that you and your committee have been doing since the last conference in April.
President-Elect – Julie Haack
Julie is currently in the process of finding new co-chairs and is waiting on response from someone for awards co-chair. She is also starting to look for slate of candidates to fill elected positions.
Vice-President – Gisella Baker
Please remember that anybody is able to utilize the telenet line by just contacting me. It is best to do so via email so I can refer back to possible days/times and are able to reply with the dial-in instructions. Reconciliation of the books – still working on it since it has presented some challenges figuring out the GoEMerchant way of crediting and debiting fees. My goal is to be done through September in the next few days. Looking forward to attending Leadership Symposium on October 15.
Secretary – Sara Harrington
No report
Delegates – Todd Brown, Pam Perry, Kristi Fuller
Summary: Review of IASFAA Treasurer Books
Two of the three delegates (Pam Perry and Todd Brown), along with the Treasurer-Elect (Bethany Rinderknecht), the Treasurer (Greg Geistkemper), and the President-Elect (Julie Haack), met on August 8 to conduct the review of the Treasurer’s books on behalf of the Association. There were no findings or inadequacies to report. A handful of recommendations were made to streamline future reviews. I have included our summary with this report for the Executive Council’s review.
2012-13 Annual Review of IASFAA’s Treasurer’s Books
Two of the three Delegates (Pam Perry and Todd Brown), the Treasurer-Elect (Bethany Rinderknecht), the Treasurer (Greg Geistkemper), and the President-Elect (Julie Haack) met in Mount Vernon on August 8 to conduct a review of the 2012-13 IASFAA Treasurer’s books.
General Recommendations:
Recommendation: Pull all transactions from ATAC into an excel spreadsheet.
- Proof of Cash Worksheet :
- This was determined to be accurate.
Recommendations – Enhance the directions for Proof of Cash Worksheet by adding column labeled “change of value” to better clarify the breakdown of the credits. Better clarify how change of value is calculated and that it includes the interest income listed separately on the bank statement.
- Comparability tests on income items:
- Dues (A), Conference Fees (B), Interest Income (C), and Exhibitor Income (D) comparability test results were all reasonable. These tests took considerable time to complete, due to unique issues with conference fees and dues. We had difficulty aligning conference registrations and paid memberships between ATAC and QuickBooks due to comps, late fees, scholarship recipients, and lifetime members. We also had difficulty associating credit card payments that included both conference fees and dues in ATAC (the entire credit card payment is shown as conference registration) to transactions in QuickBooks (dues and conference registration fees are split).
Recommendations – Do some preparative work prior to the annual review to compile a list of memberships and fall/spring conference registrations that were tied to these unique circumstances. If possible, notate in ATAC credit card payments that pay both dues and conference registration.
- Sampling of Expenses/Disbursements:
- All samples of disbursements/expenses over $500 were properly paid and documented. Four items were noted about expenses/disbursements under $500:
- Emails for two transactions were used in place of signed expense forms. Recommendation: If this is deemed acceptable documentation, this should be added to the Policy and Procedure manual.
- No documentation for the return of overpayment by credit card.
Recommendation: Create a policy on how to document electronic transactions in regard to refunds or cancellations. Either use the expense form or create an electronic transaction change form.
- Missing an expense form for a payment to ATAC for check number 5155 in the amount of $100 for the fall exhibitor form for fall conference.
- Identified an expense report which was not calculated correctly by member and missed by treasurer. Correct receipts were attached but total amount did not include one receipt. We owe member Amy Gaffney $14.58 for a meal expense from November 2012.
The IASFAA FACT Book has been updated and posted to the IASFAA website. If you have missing information, please send it to any of the current IASFAA Delegates.
ICSAC Report
The ICSAC update has been pushed back to October 29. Thank you to everyone who came to board meeting 2 weeks ago to recognize Don Duzik.
Committee Reports
Awards – Elizabeth Minard
The IASFAA Awards Committee Report had its first teleconference on September 10th, 2013. We identified the fall awards and a list of things that needed to be worked on. We also created a deadline of when specific tasks are to be completed. The fall awards are the John Heisner Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award, John Parker Distinguished Award, the Meritorious Service Award and the Student Success Story. So far we have received a couple of nominations and are waiting for more! Please submit your nomination as soon as possible as the deadline is October 7th. The awards committee will have another teleconference on October 8th or 9th to determine the recipients of the awards. Awards will be ordered soon after recipients are identified. We look forward to receiving more nominations as we still have time!
Here is a summary of our teleconference which took place on 09/10/13:
Summary
The fall IASFAA Conference will take place November 6th, 7th, and 8th. The theme is “Rollin on the River- Keeping up with changing currents”.
After our teleconference today the following was assigned:
· DeAnn will contact Mary Jacobson to get membership list to identify those who will be celebrating 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30+ years of service.
· DeAnn will create certificates for these individuals.
· DeAnn will forward this information to Kacie so she can include it on the PPT or Prezi.
· Kaci will create the PPT or Prezi for the fall conference. The presentation will have animations/pictures to go with the IASFAA theme.
· Next teleconference will be on 10/8/13 from 2:30PM-3:30PM. We will go over nominations and select a final recipient.
The timeline of events will go as follows (this is a rough estimate of when things will happen):
· On 9/13/13 Elizabeth will send out an e-mail via the IASFAA list serve to request nominations for the following awards:
o John Heisner Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award
o Dr. John Parker Distinguished Award
o Meritorious Service Award
o Student Success Story
· On 9/13/13 Elizabeth will send out another e-mail asking for the names of those who have retired since last fall.
o Information will be passed on to Susan so she can verify which retiree will be attending the fall conference.
o A certificate will be made for the retiree by Susan.
o If a retiree indicates they will attend the fall conference a small gift will be purchased for them.
· During the week of September 16th, Susan will send out an e-mail to the following groups requesting nominations:
o Past leadership
o Past presidents
o Previous award recipients
· On 9/27/13 Elizabeth will send another e-mail via the IASFAA list serve soliciting nominations for fall awards.
· Deadline for nomination submissions will be on 10/7/13.
· On 10/9/13, after selecting award recipients Elizabeth will mail off medallions to place in Cedar Rapids. We should have them back by end of October and ready for the fall conference.
· DeAnn will have information to Kacie by 10/11/13.
· Between 10/14/13 and 10/31/13 Kacie will have PPT or Prezi ready for preview and review.
· Kaci- If any Iowans receive any MASFAA awards, please keep track of them so we can incorporate them to the PPT/Prezi.
Bylaws – Delegates
No report
Community Outreach – Steve Loven/Lisa Croat
The Real Life Zone will be held on Thursday, October 17th @ 8:30 at Ogden Middle School. There will be 3 sessions with approximately 50 students going through. We may still need a few volunteers. We will need to arrive by 8 AM to set things up.
Julie Leeper at ICSAC will be helping us to get the governor declare February as financial aid awareness month. We will try to schedule it on the same day as the drive in directors workshop, so we can get a good turn out for the signing of the proclamation. Will need a date from Professional Development so they can get date to Julie.
We will also again be setting up 3 financial aid webinars for school counselors in December and January. Tim Bakula and Todd Brown will present with Steve.
Electronic Services – Chris Ditter/Mary Jacobsen
We have been working closely with the Program Committee to update the website as needed. The following things have been done or are in progress: hotel reservation information, agenda posted, Business Solutions Session registration, Awards nomination forms, conference registration, exhibitor sign-up, NASFAA training registration and a link to Student Employment training registration.
Tomorrow, October 4, the ballot for Bylaws changes will go live and will be available until October 14.
Adding the volunteer indicator to the Membership Form has been very successful. Don’t forget to check the volunteer list for your committee.
The updated Fact Book was loaded to the website yesterday.
We are working with the Program Committee to get conference registration on the website.
Exhibitor Relations – Karen Snyder/Kathie Aswegan
The 2013 fall conference program will be offering Business Solutions Sessions on Thursday morning. If you will remember, this is an opportunity for our exhibitors to promote their products and services. There are nine possible slots and eight exhibitors have expressed an interest in presenting. The ninth slot will be filled by a non-exhibitor which will also be a newcomer to our conference. AR Management from Chesterfield, MO has expressed an interest in attending for the one day and participating in the Business Solution Sessions. From their website I was able to learn that they are a full service cash flow solutions company focused on improving cash flow, increasing speed of client payments, and reducing uncollectable receivables. A possible contact for our Business Office colleagues.
I have completed creating an Information sheet with fall conference details to be posted with the online exhibitor registration.
My attempt to stir up interest among financial literacy organizations in exhibiting at our fall conference was not successful. Most said that they exhibit at regional conferences and our national conference. Many offered to send materials to be handed out at our conference. A reminder to us to thank those exhibitors that do make the commitment to attend and exhibit at our IASFAA conferences.