Present: Lorraine Acker, Eileen Daniel, Melissa Feola, Crystal Hallenbeck-McPhall – Co-Chair, Michael Harrison, Rachael Killion, Susan Lowey, Teresa Major, Rongkun Shen and Melissa Wight
Regrets: Peter Dowe, Skye Paine - Co-Chair, Lisa Robusto-Mack and Grace Wright
Welcome and Announcements
- Skye Paine was introduced as the new Co-Chair. Paine does have a class conflict this semester. Dr. Hallenbeck-McPhall will be discussing other alternatives with him.
- Melissa (Missy) Feola was introduced as the Graduate Student representative.
- The Director of Budgeting position will remain vacant for the time being. Killion will be serving as Staff to the Committee.
Review Charge
Members reviewed the committee’s charge. No questions or discussion points occurred at this time.
April 28, 2023, Meeting Summary
Members reviewed the meeting summary from the April 28, 2023, meeting. Any comments, edits or suggestions should be sent to Ms. Wight
Updates to the Committee
Closing the Loop for the 4/28 Meeting
Financial Hardship Waiver
- The waiver is available on the Registration and Records Forms page.
SUNY Pooled Offset Discussions
- Dr. Hallenbeck-McPhall reported that discussions are ongoing. The working committee is still conducting research and modeling items. They are developing different scenarios to present to SUNY on the best way to proceed.
Comprehensive Fee Discussions
- Dr. Hallenbeck-McPhall reported that discussions are ongoing. There is a call next week to discuss broad-based fees. Ms. Major stated that a couple of schools that previously converted to a comprehensive fee experienced challenges with the distribution of the fee. The positive is that it appears with these discussions that campuses would have control over the allocation of the funds.
Orientation Fee Assessment Changes
- The assessment rule change was implemented for the fall semester. This project has been finalized. Ms. Major reported that there is still a manual process going on to remove the fee from EOP students. Charging this fee to EOP students is still an ongoing discussion now that they will be participating in the summer orientations in addition to the EOP orientation. The concern is the limited financial resources for this population. Appreciation was extended to Ms. Major, Mr. Dowe and BITS staff for their work on this project.
Fall 2023 Course Fee Approval
- All of the fee requests have been approved by SUNY.
- We did have to withdraw the Nursing course fee request due to the challenges of the item having to flow through the bookstore.
- The Career Services fee requested a percentage of the fee budget to go towards student employment. This isn’t typically allowed out of the student fee. SUNY has approved the exemption again this year.
Spring 2024 Course Fee Requests
- The requests are due to SUNY on October 1, 2023.
- Ms. Killion has completed the packet and submitted it to Dr. Hallenbeck-McPhall for review. The next step is to send it to Jackie Clark and Laurie Smith, for their approval, prior to submission to SUNY. The spring and fall fee requests need to be submitted separately. At the campus level, we do our approvals at once to simplify the process.
No 2023-24 Broad-Based Fee Increases
There were no broad-based fee increases for 2023-24. The amounts remained flat. Fortunately, our enrollment is higher than projected and this may help the fee budgets to be healthier than anticipated. This could also increase expenses for the budgets as well. Ms. Killion will be doing a re-projection for the fee managers in the December/January timeframe. This should give them a better understanding of where their budget stands as they work on their budgets for next year.
Fee Registry
Ms. Killion reviewed the fee registry with members. Ms. Killion and Ms. Major explained the development of this tool and how it is used. This tool may be utilized in some of the committee’s upcoming projects.
Upcoming Projects for this Committee:
Biennial Report to JPBC
The report will be presented by Dr. Hallenbeck-McPhall to JPBC on November 9, 2023. The plan is to have a draft of the report out to the committee to review in order to discuss the report at our next meeting.
CBFRC Calendar
To better assist the rotating leadership on the committee, members will work on developing a calendar.
Call Letter Development/Review
Members will work on finalizing the call letter in order to send it out to Fee Managers in December. The scheduled date for the fee-based presentations is March 14, 2024.
Course Fee Approval Rubric
This would be developed to standardize the committee’s review. Ms. Killion would be able to add questions that she has encountered from SUNY during their review to help simplify that process. In addition, the committee would be able to share with Cabinet and SUNY how we equitably reviewed each fee request.
Course Fee IFR Balance Review Using the Revenue and Expense Template
Departments are in the process of submitting their revenue and expense templates. Once the submission process is complete, the committee should review account balances and spending plans to determine if there are any areas of concern and if there are any fees that should be reduced.
Other Items from the Committee
None at this time.