December 1, 2020

Finance Subcommittee Minutes

Committee Members Present:

  • James Kubacak – Director, Financial Aid (Co-Chair)
  • Grayson Meek – Director, Financial Services (Co-Chair)
  • Rene Clay – Associate Director, Student Accounts Receivable
  • Shelley Cotten – Coordinator, Operations & Scholarships, MCC Foundation
  • Rita Jacinto – Coordinator, Administrative Systems
  • Jerry Knutson – Research Analyst, Institutional Research
  • Tom Proctor – Director, Program Review, Planning and Assessment

Committee Members Absent:

  • Sandi Jones – Associate Director, Financial Aid
  • April Robinson – Associate Director, Financial Services

Agenda Topics:

  • Discuss financial aid refund disbursement timing to lower R2T4.
  • Discuss possible changes to financial aid allocation.
  • Discuss possibly sending a bill to students.
  • Discuss ways to educate employees on the financial aid process.
  • Give update on enrollment of Restart program.
  • Decide on future meeting schedule.

Action Items and Timelines:

  • Grayson starts the meeting at 1:32PM by summarizing the purpose of this subcommittee.
  • Discussion of financial aid refund disbursement timing.
    • Discussion of benefits and setbacks with moving the FA census date from the 4th class day to the 12th class day to be in alignment with the state census date. This would delay the disbursement of financial aid balances from the 10th day of the semester to approximately the 18th calendar day of the term.
    • Look into cost of consultant to assist with setting up module to accommodate the later FA census date and ensure system would work properly. This would include a review of AR functions as well.
    • Need to talk to instruction regarding earlier reporting of students that don’t show up to begin class.
    • Will need to talk to bookstore about a new process to allow students to purchase books under a revised FA census date format.
    • Any changes can’t be made till 2022-2023 academic year because of the timing necessary to have the FA module ready to receive student ISIR information as it becomes available.
  • Discuss suggestion of changing financial aid allocation.
    • Most aid doesn’t have the ability to be changed.
    • Will need to look into if more aid should be given to fewer students or less aid to more students.
  • Discussed current billing process.
    • Current process sends email to students notifying them of a bill on MyMCC.
    • Can’t put bill amount in the email. This keeps the information more private.
  • Discuss ways to educate employees on the financial aid process.
    • Developing single page flowchart with images could be helpful.
    • Look at preparing a Professional Development class that employees can chose to attend.
    • Look at including a class for new employees during their orientation.
  • Rene to give update of enrollment to the Restart Program.
    • 8 students have signed up so far.
    • 4 of those students have enrolled in Spring 2021 classes.
    • Up to $500 of debt will be waived by MCC for those students completing a one-year certificate or two-year associate degree.
  • Next meeting was decided for January 26th, 2021 at 1:30PM.
  • Meeting ended at 2:35PM.