The Monthly Memo

Dear Colleagues,

Again, I encourage the submission of names of other staff members within your department or school who would like to be included on the mailing list for this monthly memo.

1. We are in the process of updating our school contact list. Please provide the name, address, telephone number, and email address of the individual/s who handle the day to day processing of the various state programs in the Office of Student Financial Aid and in the Office of the Bursar or Business Office. Please also indicate the responsibilities that person has related to the state programs e.g. "processes refunds."

2. When sending any electronic data e.g. email FM/V, please indicate the "start of the file" and the "end of the file" along with the number of records and a person to contact in case all of the file does not transmit. There have been a few cases where substantial data files sent via email have been cut off before reaching our server. If you provide the information above, it will be obvious to us that we did not receive the entire record. In such cases we will contact you and request that you resend the data that we did not receive.

3. As of 1/22/98 the following has been spent for WHEG and WTG:

   UW WHEG:	87.64%	(last year 93.50% was spent)
   WTC WHEG:	84.44%	(last year 72.09% was spent)
   WTG:	73.04%	(last year 80.21% was spent)

4. We continue to monitor both the spent and committed figures for both the WHEG and WTG programs. The WTG had exceeded the 122% statutory maximum overcommit. However, schools submitted a substantial number of changes requesting to delete their school from student records which brought the overcommit percentage below the 122%. This has prevented the need to institute the "W" code at this point in time.

5. 1997-98 notification lists and other associated reports were printed 1/7/98 (mailed 1/7/98) and 1/22/98 (mailed 1/23/98.) February print dates have been scheduled for 2/4/98 and 2/18/98. Please continue to cross reference your student record data with the notification list information.

6. We believe that all of the unintentional changes, that occurred when we made the WTC WHEG Program adjustments, have been taken care of. For example, some TIP awards were converted to $1,800 on the notification lists; some WTC WHEG awards were either greater or less than they should have been; and some of the source and report codes converted incorrectly. Due to the adjustments that were necessary to correct the student records that were affected, the notification list that was scheduled to run 1/20/98 was not run for the WTC System. The next notification list is scheduled to run 2/4/98. If you detect any problems on the 2/3/98 notification list, please contact me as soon as possible.

7. It appears that we are not receiving all of the records that are being processed by the federal processor. We have been in contact with the federal processor trying to resolve this issue. Some schools have given us old examples to track and are working closely with us to track current files being transmitted from the school to the processor. So far, we have been able to determine that in a number of cases it took more than two weeks between the time the school sent the information electronically to the processor and when it was sent to HEAB. There is also some internal programming that we are looking at too that may be related to this issue.

8. There also appears to be some isolated cases where FM updates made are not reaching our student records. We are looking at some internal programming that may be related to this issue too.

9. February's vouchering jobs have been scheduled for Tuesday and Friday nights. Please be aware that we cannot guarantee that your request can be loaded on the same day it has been received if the information arrives after 3PM. Keep in mind that it takes two to three business days after the vouchering process runs before checks are physically printed. Contact me if you have any questions. It is very important that you request funds for students who are registered or who you know will indeed be attending your school. This will assist in reducing the number of refunds that are processed. Please refer to your October Monthly Memo, under point three, which references what must be included when submitting refunds to HEAB and the timeframe in which funds must be returned. PLEASE RETURN REFUNDS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, ESPECIALLY FOR SOME OF THE SMALLER PROGRAMS IN WHICH REFUNDS APPEAR TO BE DOWN. This will ensure that available funds are spent. I will mention this again in the March memo. However, I thought it might be helpful for you to know this now. Since the state system is scheduled to be down in early March, we will not be able to voucher March 6th.

10. There appears to be a noticeable time lag between when the Office of Student Financial Aid sends the refund information to the Office of the Bursar and when the Office of the Bursar sends the refunds to HEAB. If there is anything that can be done to reduce this time lag it would be appreciated.

11. It has come to our attention that a batch of processed refunds reflected on our student records system was not reflected on the notification list. This is in the process of being resolved. We are also changing our internal procedure of processing refunds so that refund processing turnaround time will decrease within our agency.

12. I thank those of you who responded to the January memo question related to the "report codes" and "processing codes" that are found on the various lists we send out. Your input was very helpful in our discussions related to 1998-99. If you haven't responded yet, I would still appreciate the information.

13. Please DO NOT send any changes for 1998-99 academic year yet. We have had a few callers asking if we are processing 1998-99 at this time. We are not. You will be notified when we are ready to begin the new year.

14. An Academic Excellence Scholarship notification list will be sent this week. Please continue to voucher funds based on this list.

15. The next Board (formerly Council) meeting will be held February 27, 1998, beginning at 9AM in the Governor's Conference Room at the State Capitol. We will be discussing formulas for 1998-99 and the next biennial budget, among other issues. The three Financial Aid Administrator representatives are Mary Jo Green, Sr. Mary Beth Kornely, and Steve Van Ess.

16. There have been just a few personnel changes at HEAB. In December, the Joint Finance Committee approved an additional Program Assistant position which we hope to fill soon. In January Val Olson, HEAB's Executive Secretary, retired. I have been appointed the Acting Executive Secretary until March when a final appointment will be determined.

17. Just a reminder that our general HEAB email address that all file maintenance changes, adds, and voucher requests should be sent to is:
    HEAB@mail.state.wi.us

I thank you once again for your feedback! I appreciate your thoughts! My phone number is 608.264.6181, FAX: 608.267.2808, EMAIL: hojanj@mail.state.wi.us and snailmail: HEAB, P.O. Box 7885, Madison,WI 53707-7885.