The Meeting Was Called to Order by President Heather Gaumer at 10:07A.M

IASFAA Executive Council Teleconference Minutes
August 7th, 2012

Attendees: Gisella Baker, Shelly Brimeyer, Todd Brown, Christine Ditter, Don Duzik, Ean Freels, Kristi Fuller, Amy Gaffney, Heather Gaumer, Greg Geistkemper, Mary Jacobsen, Steve Loven, Tristan Lynn, Joan Meyer, Chad Olson, Cindi Reints, Jennifer Sassman, Carolyn Schwendeman, Mary Jo Smith, Brandi Stone-Miller.

The meeting was called to order by President Heather Gaumer at 10:07a.m.

Prior Meeting Minutes
Motion –Shelly Brimeyer made a motion to accept the minutes of the May 1, 2012 teleconference and the April 13, 2012 meeting to accept the standing committees.

Second - Gisella Baker
Motion passed.

Treasurer’s Report – Gisella Baker

Total Assets $119,626.02 (including money market account).

An update on the online credit/debit card service through GoEMerchant. I talked to Keith Williams at NASFAA since he is the current MASFAA Treasurer and MASFAA uses GoEMerchant. He did not have the exact information on cost of course at that moment but will forward that to me soon. In the meantime, I called GoEMerchant again and their representative told me that I could forward her what MASFAA pays and she could match it. I will continue to follow up on this and hope to have final numbers for review in the September telenet.

Motion – Amy Gaffney made a motion to accept the Treasurer’s Report.
Second – Cindi Reints seconded the motion.
Motion passed.

Officer’s Reports

Past President – Amy Gaffney

Not much traffic, just making sure Heather is on the respective lists as the new state president. Contacted by Indiana for someone to sit on Site committee for 2013 conference and attended MASFAA planning retreat this past weekend as Delegate (not past-president)

MASFAA meeting: presentation by Justin Draeger was very informative, review of duties as member of non-profit. This may be a good thing for us to review later.

President –Heather Gaumer

I attended the West Virginia Association of Student Finanicial Aid Administrators conference April 25-27, 2012 as part of the MASFAA state exchange. They were very welcoming and held a fabulous new comer session.

I attended the NASFAA Conference July 22 – 25, 2012. I attended multiple sessions and learned of NASFAA’s offer to allow state association to invest alongside NASFAA investments. The minimum investment amount is $150,000 for state associations to participate.

The MASFAA Summer Retreat was held August 2 -4, 2012 in Michigan. The MASFAA Conference will be take place October 14 – 17, 2012 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Robert Piechota from Briar Cliff has taken a job that will require him to leave the state of Iowa. Robert was the Chair of the Exhibitor Relations committee which leaves us with a vacancy on the council to fill. Jennifer Sassman and I are working to find a new Chair and Co-Chair for the position. Although I am sad to see Robert leave the state, I am glad to know he will be staying in financial aid and we will all be able to continue to see him at regional conferences.

President-Elect – Jen Sassman

No Report.

Vice-President – Cindi Reints

Please make sure and let me know if you need me to schedule any teleconference time on the calendar.

Secretary – Carolyn Schwendeman

If you did not forward your report to me prior to today’s meeting, please do so as soon as you can.

Delegates – Shelly Brimeyer, Don Duzik and Erin Gjerde-Bailey

The 3 delegates, along with President-Elect Jen Sassman and Treasurer-Elect Greg Geistkemper, met on July 30 to perform the annual review of the 11-12 Treasurer’s books on behalf of the Association. All seemed to be in order and there were no findings or inadequacies to report. Every year, this process seems to become further refined as different people are involved and can offer their individual input. Therefore, a couple of recommendations were made when testing income comparability items. Greg noted these recommendations for the upcoming year, which will hopefully streamline the review process next year. I have included our summary with this report for the Exec. Council’s review.

Jason Henderson from Morgan Stanley had graciously agreed to meet with us on the same day to discuss any changes that might be considered in our investment portfolio. He suggested that we first identify what direction we want to take before deciding if we want to make any changes:

1.Do we want to outperform fixed income and beat inflation in a traditional institutional portfolio where equities would be included?

2.Do we want to take a “half-step” and look into investment-grade rated fixed securities?

- establish a standard (i.e., only those with ratings of B- or above for purchasing as well as a “must sell” threshold) and diversify our portfolio with a certain percentage in FDIC-insured accounts.

Pros – could potentially double or triple our investment returns; Jason would help monitor the securities and establish flexibility in the standards we select (ie: 30-60 day window to allow for market fluctuations).

3.Do we want to grow our assets and stay above inflation by adding equities and monitoring dividends? The current ladder we have could be duplicated entirely in fixed securities.

We made sure to tell him the information would be brought to the Executive Council and also that we have the tendency to be very conservative.

Addendum following Executive Council meeting: The Policy and Procedures manual has been divided among all 3 delegates to review for additions/changes/revisions, etc. We are still in the process of reviewing it.

2011-12 Annual Review of IASFAA’s Treasurer’s Books

The three Delegates (Don Duzik, Shelly Brimeyer, Todd Brown), the Treasurer-Elect (Greg Geistkemper) and the President-Elect (Jen Sassman) gathered on July 30, 2012 to perform the annual review of the 2011-12 IASFAA Treasurer’s books. The review team would like to thank the Treasurer (Gisella Baker) and the Vice President (Cindi Reints) for their efforts in preparing the books for the review and for being available for questions, as well as Jennifer Schroeder for being available for questions.

General Recommendations:

Recommendation: Enhance the directions for the Proof of Cash Worksheet to make sure reviewers reference the proper column titled “This Period” on the Morgan Stanley statements. Morgan Stanley reversed placement of the two columns - This Period and This Year - on the bank statements since they were last reviewed in August 2011.

Reasoning: This will ensure the proper dollar figures are placed into the Proof of Cash Worksheet for accurate calculations.

1. Proof of Cash Worksheet – This was determined to be accurate.
2. Comparability tests on income items – Dues(A), Conference Fees(B), Interest Income(C), and Exhibitor Income(D) comparability test results were all reasonable, once it was determined how late conference fees were delineated on Quick Books. Several late conference registration fees of $10 were itemized separately from full or day conference registration on Quick Books, which made it difficult to determine what type of income they were.

Recommendation #1 – Late registration fees should be included in the same entry as conference registration on Quick Books. Also identify if any modifications can be made to the Quick Books Deposit Detail report to assist with this review in subsequent years. [utilize Quick Books Deposit Detail report for better detail on conference payments.].

Reasoning – By doing this, late fees can be calculated into income received from conference registrations.

Recommendation #2 – When conference registration fees are paid late (ie: fall conference paid in February), designate more clearly in Quick Books what conference they are attached to (ie: fall or spring).

Reasoning – This will help identify conference income in further detail, especially if conference registration fees are the same for fall and spring as they were in 2011-2012 ($105).

1. Sampling of Expenses/Disbursements – All samples of disbursements/expenses under $500 were properly paid. All items over $500 were reviewed and properly paid. One question arose while reviewing MASFAA expenses incurred by Joan Meyer in October 2011. These expenses totaled $270.83. Joan’s total gasoline purchases were reimbursed, rather than mileage. Jennifer Schroeder was consulted, and she confirmed this decision was made to save IASFAA money. The mileage reimbursement would have exceeded the actual cost of Joan’s gasoline.

ICSAC Report

Todd Brown

NGEAP Award - Commission staff have a meeting with the Iowa National Guard this afternoon to review the 2012-13 max NGEAP award. Commission staff hopes the memo from the Adjutant General authorizing the maximum NGEAP award will be released soon.

Significant updates have been made to the State Scholarship and Grant Reporting System for the 2012-13 academic year. Programs were added to allow colleges to report disbursements electronically, including the new Kibbie Grant and the Education and Training Voucher (ETV) Program. For colleges that upload a text file, the file layout has also been updated. Colleges will have the option of uploading the old format or the new format in 2012-13.

Staff plan to open the State Scholarship and Grant Reporting System for 2012-13 college reporting on September 3, 2012.

Committee Reports

Awards - Mary Jo Smith

The Awards Committee has acquired two members so far. They are Susan Ladd,

Drake University and DeAnn Krutsinger, Waldorf College. We will seek a

couple more members and will begin meeting in September to prepare for the

Fall Conference awards to be presented.

Bylaws – Delegates - Shelly Brimeyer

No report.

Community Outreach – Steve Loven (Co-Chair)

The committee met in July. Marie is working on getting a school in NE Iowa to participate in our Real Life Zone. We are also seeking committee members and will be working on school counselor webinars later this fall and College Goal Sunday in February.

Electronic Services – Mary Jacobsen

The IASFAA Blog is being tested by Federal and State Issues and should be live soon. We received answers from ATAC on the questions we had during retreat. They have been passed on to Heather for further discussion.

Exhibitor Relations – no current chair

No report.

Federal & State Issues – Ean Freels

We reviewed the committee description...no changes.

We put together a preliminary budget for the Legislative Day, and it is still being updated.

We have completed an outline for the Iowa "Financial Aid By the Numbers" Handout. It is currently being reviewed/perfected by the committee.

We are in the process of creating general legislative/regulatory information for the IASFAA webpage. Each of us are working on our own section for possible inclusion on the website. Examples include information concerning how to communicate with a Legislator, and how the Negotiated Rule Making process works.

We have reviewed IASFAA Talk, and have begun to set up sub categories.

Finance – Heather Gaumer

The Finance Committee will meet to set the budget once I receive all committee budgets. I have received all but two committee budgets so the Finance Committee should be able to meet very soon. If you have not yet submitted your committee budget to me, please do so as soon as possible.

Long-Range Planning – Joan Meyer

Long Range Planning - I am waiting to see what the committee budgets look

like to update the long range plan.

Newsletter – Brandi Stone-Miller

The newsletter committee will be producing a Back to School special edition newsletter in September. If you have any ideas or articles that would be beneficial to the membership, please let me know. Also, I would be interested in any comics that we could reproduce that would be relevant to financial aid or students heading off to college. I am looking for something fun or entertaining to add to this edition.

Professional Development – Julie Haack

The 2012 Support Staff Workshop was held on Thursday, July 16th at the Upper Iowa Campus is West Des Moines. The theme of the workshop was Support and Collaboration. We had 20 attendees. We had sessions on the following topics:

General Session – Simple Truths, presented by Erin Gjerde-Bailey, on customer service.

Boo, Who? – using social media in recruiting and public relations, presented by Jim Braunschweig, Social Media manager at Morningside College

Memory Skills – presented by Nancy Ankeny, Iowa College Aid Commission

“Talkin’ bout my Generation” – how to relate to multiple generations in one work place, presented by Amy Gaffney

Microsoft Office 2010 – highlights of the changes between Office 2007 and 2010, presented by Mary Bonnstetter, AIB College of Business

Healthy Eating in the Workplace – a fact filled and tasty presentation during the lunch break by registered dietician Julie Gieseman from Hy-Vee.

Topics were very well received. We worked closely with Stephanie Peters from Morningside College who helped to promote the event on the admissions side. She also created the program and the evaluation form.

Costs of the Program:

Location Upper Iowa$ 0.00

MealsHy-Vee lunch -$343.44

Snacks$ 69.48

Mileage$ 325.50

Total expenses:$738.42

Fees($400.00)

Net Cost $338.42

We had lots of volunteers. A big thank you goes out to my co-chair Jennifer Schroeder, Marie Pleggenkuhle, Amy Gaffney, Erin Gjerde-Bailey, and the staff at Morningside College.

Program Committee – Kristi Fuller

Program Committee held an on-site meeting for those that could make it at Harrah's Casino in Council Bluffs on Wednesday, July 18. Planning started for the fall conference general and interest sessions and we received a tour of the hotel and conference facilities. We will begin to have teleconferences this Friday and then following on every other Friday.

Site Coordinating Committee – Chad Olson

The Site Committee continues to collaborate with the Program Committee regarding the Fall 2012 conference. We are also reviewing contracts for the Fall 2013 and Fall 2014 conferences, to be tentatively held in Dubuque (2013) and Davenport (2014).

Motion – Amy Gaffney made a motion to accept the committee & officer reports.
Second – Carolyn Schwendeman
Motion passed.

Old Business

Approval of President’s expenses was discussed. Delegates are working on reviewing policies and procedures.

New Business

No new business.

Motion –Cindi Reintsmade a motion to adjourn.
Second – Shelly Brimeyer.
Motion passed.

Meeting adjourned at 10:47 am.

Respectfully submitted by Carolyn Schwendeman

Next Executive Teleconference – October 2nd, 10:00 am.