WASFAA 2015-16 Executive Council Meeting

Palms Resort and Casino, Las Vegas, NV February 17-18, 2016

Present: Janelle Cooke, Phil LeBlac, Mary McGlothlan, Kay Soltis, Laura Hughes, Dewayne Barnes, Nicole McMillin, Jack Edwards, Barbara Bickett, Mike Johnson, Leondard Walker, Sun Ow, Tami Saito, Ashley Coleman, Ashley Munro, Ashley Salisbury, Sandi Guidry, Mindy Bergeron, Steve Herndon, Michelle Holdway, Oscar Verduzco, Dayna Isla, Helen Faith, John Bender

Wednesday February 17th, 2016

Meeting called to order at 1:03pm by Barbara Bickett.

Introduction of new Executive Council Members. Kevin Jensen has moved to New York and Jack Edwards will fulfil the Past President role through April (Frank Green was unable to participate). Jack will also fill the NASFAA Board seat.

Review of the electronic ballots since November EC Meeting: Election results and 16-17 Committee Chairs were approved; Talking Points for Leadership Expo approved.

Review of November 2015 EC Meeting Minutes: Changes- Beryl attended, Westin spelling, Ashley Munro attended. Motion to approve as corrected by Dewayne Barnes. Seconded by Mindy Bergeron. Motion passes unanimously.

Outstanding To-Do Items: To Do’s State Presidents Forward school address and email to Sandi Guidry done State Presidents Review the suggestion to have the state presidents take an active role in conference site selection and contract. Ongoing. Helen Faith Re-write the survey questions; send to the EC. done Review the EDAC Charter. Table until survey results complete. All Work on NASFAA certifications. Ongoing Kevin Jensen Fill in remaining missing data in the measured tracking tool. Transitioned to Jack. Michelle Holdway Create a task force to review membership structure. Continue into spring. Ashley Salisbury Add certification level completed to membership database. Done.

Motion to approve consent agenda with Communications moved into consent agenda and a second Awards & Scholarships section prior to executive session by Jack Edwards. Seconded by Jack Edwards. Motion passes unanimously.

State Presidents Report:

All states are struggling with finding dates. States need to find dates that don’t back up with other meetings, other states or other regions. Arizona and Nevada will need to also consider the years that FSA is in Las Vegas. Vendor support is also a problem. For the next state meeting, Sandi will invite the Rep-at-Large to come and talk about what vendors might be looking for from state conferences.

States are having a hard time finding volunteers. Members need specific invites for volunteering. Some discussion on the length of terms of officers. Ashley Munro attended as a guest and talked about the Anchorage Conference, having the states advertise for the conference and offer state members the opportunity to volunteer as a moderator.

In Oregon, there was an Active Shooter Training by the FBI on campuses. Beneficial training; not a financial aid specific topic, but directors are responsible for the safety of staff and the financial aid office can be a target. Other states are interested in having similar sessions. This is a potential topic for a WASFAA Conference (in Seattle), or other emergency preparedness training.

States also discussed insurance and liability issues, including what insurance policies are used and what address to use for documents.

Treasurer’s Report: FY15 and FY16 information was distributed via email. For FY15, $15,000 was spent for the FY16 meetings. This leaves us with $60,000 overspent. Our assets have gone down $101,000 during the year. Mindy has paid the music rights with BMI. Insurance policies (4 of them: death, group accident, DNO, theft) are being updated and renewed now. The 2016 mileage rate went down to .54 per mile. The expense reimbursement form has been updated. Kevin Jensen’s credit card has been canceled. Interest rate went down from 14% to 11%. Mindy is working on getting Mike a credit card.

Fiscal Planning Report: For FY15, we planned to use $61,000 in carry forward, so we were right on target (using $60,000). The committee met this morning: Mindy provided a budget review, Leonard talked about site selection, Ashley M provided a conference report, Ashley M and Kay provided summer institute report. Action item: reduce the amount in the FY16 budget for EC meetings, as we paid some out of FY15. We have already paid a significant amount of money for this meeting from last fiscal year. There is potential for FY17 line item to be added to the budget later this year, it will depend on location. We spend more money in FY15 on EC meetings than most years ($71K). Expenses have increased because we do the transition meeting in February, rather than at the conference and transition meeting is no longer a separate line item.

Motion to reduce $55K to $40,124 for EC and reduce asset reserves/carry forward to $58 by Jack Edwards . Seconded by Dewayne Barnes. Motion passes unanimously.

Summer Institute discussion during Fiscal Planning as well. NASFAA is no longer using CORE, but it is providing self-study guides. We are allowed to provide information electronically this year, which can save $10,000 in printing costs. Due to this savings, the committee is not asking for a fee increase.

Motion to approve $700 resident and $450 commuters, plus a $50 membership fee for summer institute made by Jack Edwards. Seconded by Mindy Bergeron. Motion passes unanimously.

Fiscal Planning and Strategic Planning working together to look at policy to have a conference in each state every ten years and the scheduled rotation; and a continued review of the Asset Reserve Policy.

Training Committee Report: Successfully completed fall face to face and webcast training; the numbers are available in the provided report. Sarah Everitt from Gonzaga will be in the incoming chair. There is a potential for a spring webcast on planning for a year in the financial aid office. There is a recommendation for a co-chair for the training committee. Federal Relations Report: This will be a short legislative year, so we aren’t expecting much action; though higher education is on the list of topics. Simplification and a reduction of repayment options are hot topics. There is a request to allow universities to lower loan limits to allow for more flexibility and support. Prior-Prior Year recommendation to use the prior award pell grants, since the pell grant chart doesn’t get announced in time for early award letters. GE Reporting has been a nightmare, so there are some requests for changes included in the approved talking points; specifically the short response time for challenges. Two committee members have been attending Negotiated Rule Making for defense against repayment- the current timetable is 3 years, questioning should it be longer? Year Round Pell and on Time pell (additional $300 for 15 credits or more) on the potentials list. Potential FSA workshop series in Seattle and San Francisco.

EDAC Report: Helen emailed out the revised survey questions to the EC, changes were made to make it easier and streamlined. Questions from survey read to the group, as not all EC members had an opportunity to review. Recommendation to reorder questions to group school-related questions and WASFAA questions.

Motion to approve the survey questions as presented by Nicole McMillin. Seconded by Dewayne Barnes. Motion passes unanimously.

Awards & Scholarships Report: Currently all scholarship recipients are asked to write an article for the newsletter. With our increasing number of scholarships, this increases the articles and not all can be published in the newsletter. Suggestion from Communications Committee to have scholarship recipients volunteer with moderating sessions or registration volunteering rather than just writing a newsletter. Suggestion from Barbara to have everyone volunteer and write a blurb with a picture; submissions could be used in the newsletter or blurbs online.

Strategic Planning: We are at the end of a three year strategic plan. The recommendation of the committee is to extend the current strategic plan through 2017 and a new plan will be drafted during this upcoming year. We should limit the number of goals to 4-5.

Motion to extend current strategic plan for one year by Mindy Bergeron. Seconded by Oscar Verduzco. Motion passes unanimously.

Entered Executive Session at 3:03pm. Exited Executive Session at 3:33pm. Recessed at 3:34pm.

Reconvene February 18 at 9:19am.

Conference Report- 112 registrations as of today; session descriptions posted yesterday. We’ve met our room block already; we’ve made a slight change to the timeline. There will be 3 pre-conference sessions starting at 9:30 on Sunday. Vendor area will be open, allowing for extra time with vendors. This may conflict a little with the EC meeting and the pre-sessions; Laura will need to work with Barbara if we want the EC to participate in the Newcomers’ session. 9 EC voting members will be present at the meeting, so we will have a quorum. State presidents can send another representative to participant in the EC meeting. If something changes for voting members please contact Barbara. 35 sessions being offered; receptions on Sunday for EDAC and President’s. 12 vendors attending as of today; we have sponsored lanyards.

Summer Institute Report- fees were approved yesterday; faculty are set, we met on Tuesday at Portland State University; Dept of Education responded and we need to follow up with a formal request to present at least 2 sessions; the credentialing access will remain, even with the new materials; WASFAA will purchase 18 modules for $1800 to include 200 licenses. There is also a mini summer institute in Honolulu March 11-12. Website Redesign Task Force Report-discussion regarding the two designs. It will be approximately $900 to make the change and a 3 week timeline for display at the conference. Consensus was that we combine the two designs.

Motion to merge the two website designs with the larger logo and states listed across the top made by Nicole McMillin. Seconded by Mindy Bergeron. Motion passes unanimously.

Membership Report- There have been some concerns regarding the membership timelines; specifically that if a school paid membership in the summer, it should extend to conference because its within that year. The online form does clearly state the membership term, but the conference is within that time frame (April). A handout was provided to council regarding membership data. Discussion on the handout followed. Suggestions that the committee look more into the institutional and historical data, research state and other regions and look to voting and election issues if we move to institutional members.

State and Regional Updates- Mike attended the Oregon Conference. Barbara will be at PacFAA in mid-March. PNACAC (Pacific Northwest Association for College Admission Counselors) contacted us to collaborate to host workshops on PPY and SAT redesign. Consensus from council that we want to be supportive in this effort. Barbara will contact PNACAC President for more information.

NASFAA Update- NASFAA organized a 2 day meeting for the observation group. One of the topics explored the difference between state, regional and national associations and why its important to belong and participate in all. NASFAA will work on collecting information to share as part of a “thought force”.

MLI- final report was forwarded out to the group. The survey results are in and being reviewed. Interesting data was that the attendees had less than 5 years of experience. There was a different format used this year, which created a lot of interaction.

Nominations & Elections-Ballot was approved, EC approved the ballot via email. Elected officers: President-Elect Helen Faith Vice President Nicole McMillin Secretary Ashley Coleman Treasurer-Elect Mindy Bergeron EDAC Rep-at Large Dewayne Barnes

Bylaws, Policies & Procedures- document provided with suggested changes to P&P 2-7 and 4-3-B.

P&P 2-7 Add: Other Loss of Eligibility for Executive Council Duties.

When members of the Executive Council remain eligible to serve on the Executive Council but become ineligible to perform certain duties, such as losing eligibility to participate in NASFAA leadership roles by moving to a non-NASFAA member institution, those duties will be reassigned based on the provisions on 2-6 Vacancies on the Executive Council.

4-3-B Proposed Addition

9. The President, in consultation with the Executive Council can remove a Committee Chair from his or her position if that Committee Chair has demonstrated a failure to perform his or her duties. The President can then recommend a new chair for Executive Council approval. 10. The Chair of the respective committee in consultation with the President, can remove a committee member for failure to perform his or her assigned tasks and select a new committee member if needed.

Proposed update to 7: to indicate that President does not need to approve committee members, as long as they are WASFAA members.

Motion to accept proposed changes and amendment made by Helen Faith. Seconded by Janelle Cook. Motion passes unanimously.

President-Elect Report- Sarah Everitt, incoming Training Committee chair, would like to have a co-chair for the year. Thalyssa Naylor was the suggested individual.

Motion to approve Thalyssa Naylor as Training Committee Co-Chair by Nichole McMillin. Seconded by Scott Cline. Motion passes unanimously.

Site Selection Report- The next state up in the conference rotation is Idaho (after 2017 Seattle). There are two potential locations: Boise (The Grove) or Coeur d’ Alene. The other decision is whether to skip Idaho for a larger state. After informal poll, Executive Council recommends that we go to Boise, Idaho in 2018. Discussion on the Executive Council travel budget: we have spent more money than past years. In part, this is due to bringing in state presidents’ earlier do they can meet, and we’re spreading out the meetings to more locations, which adds in cost. We should also look at the total numbers of meetings and the structure of the transition meeting.

Consent Agenda Items: Officer Reports  Past-President  President-Elect  Vice President State President’s Reports  Alaska  Arizona  California  Pacific Islands  Idaho  Nevada  Oregon  Washington Committee Reports  Membership  Volunteer Development o Laura will be making a plan for Newcomers’ Session and will get the agenda to Barbara.  Electronic Services  Historical Archives  Fund Development o If anyone has suggestions for a vendor, please let Sun know. We would like at least 2 more vendors.  Rep-at-Large Affiliate  Communications

New Business- NASFAA Leadership Conference- WASFAA will pay for the President-Elect, Treasurer-Elect and EDAC Chair. NASFAA will cover some of the expenses, expo costs.

NASFAA Board- the actual representative, Past-President, is paid for by NASFAA. The President is paid for by WASFAA.

For the Anchorage Executive Council meeting, the 1516 EC should make their own hotel arrangements and payments. You can submit reimbursement for Friday and Saturday night to WASFAA.

TO DO:  Mindy to get Mike Johnson a credit card.  Ashley Munro to collect scholarship articles and recipient list from Sandi, Ashley C and Mindy and use for advertisements for conference and summer institute.  Ashley Munro to change the wording in the scholarships award letter and website to remove “article” and replace with something more general.  Barbara will contact PNACAC for more information on the collaborative workshops.  Laura Hughes to get agenda for Newcomer’s Session to Barbara for the planning of April EC meeting.

Motion to adjourn 2015-2016 Executive Council meeting made by Mindy Bergeron. Seconded by Janelle Cook. Motion passes unanimously.

Meeting Adjourned at 11:55am.