OCTOBER 21, 2014 LAKE PLACID CONFERENCE CENTER INTEGRATING FINANCIAL AID AND STUDENT ACCOUNTS

PRESENTERS SUNY Plattsburgh Todd Moravec, Director of Student Financial Services Gregory Withrow, Bursar/Director of Student Accounts Clarkson University Pamela Nichols, Director of Financial Aid Amanda Pickering, Bursar

PHYSICAL SPACE Financial Aid Office Bursar/Student Accounts Separate offices Separate service windows Separate phone line Separate web pages

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE VP for Student Affairs FAO Director Associate Director Financial Aid Advisor Keyboard Specialist II VP for Administration Bursar/Director of Student Accounts Calculations Clerk II

CUSTOMER SERVICE Plagued by silos (“ours” and “yours”) Unnecessary phone transfers and walk-in referrals Multiple points of contact to answer questions Financial Aid Student Accounts What’s the intercollegiate athletic fee? How do I view my bill and choose optional fees? What’s my bill balance? Where is my refund? Why don’t I have work- study? What is a subsidized loan? Why aren’t my loans deducted from the bill?

OPERATIONS Lack of collaborative planning and implementation Lack of understanding policies and procedures and rationale behind them (“ours” and “yours”) Operations generated unnecessary phone calls for other office

OFFICE MORALE Tension between office staff and directors Problems tended to be resolved by going up the chain of command rather than with one another Examples: ours and yours Students and families caught in middle sometimes Same team?

INTEGRATION Original Plan Merge offices on one floor One set of windows One phone number One set of web pages Student Financial Services Did not happen Secondary plan was to integrate behind the scenes

BLUE BOOK: VOLUME 4 Federal regulations require a school to separate the functions of authorizing payments and disbursing funds so that no single office or individual exercises both functions for any student receiving FSA funds Ensure integration remains compliant

INTEGRATION Combine staff meetings Originally every two weeks Started to discuss operational issues with each other Started to understand other office’s polices and procedures Helped each other develop reports to solve operational issues Introduced goal of minimizing referrals and single point of contact service Updated policies and procedures How do we achieve operational goals while minimizing office volume for both offices, not just one? Identified policies and procedures that caused problems for other office Reviewed and updated these when appropriate Decision made considering impact on both offices

INTEGRATION Share technology Financial Aid got view access to bill screen Student Accounts got view access to aid & requirements screens Cross-trained each other during staff meetings Combined our notes screens (R2T4 example) Share office calendar Shared “social” events

CUSTOMER SERVICE Both offices started to answer questions that would have been transferred in the past Both offices expanded the scope of questions that could be answered by their staff Reduced phone transfers and referrals More single point of contact service Financial Aid Student Accounts Both

OFFICE MORALE Dramatic improvement over the years Worked through issues during staff meetings and workgroups Staff had a better understanding of other office Empowered staff to answer a broader range of questions More compliments from students and families

ONGOING ISSUES Financial aid staff answers a broader range of questions than Student Accounts due to the heavily regulated nature of financial aid When it gets busy, staff can revert to old ways Separate offices remains confusing for some students & families Union issues

SUMMARY Successfully integrate without having to physically merge Financial Aid and Student Accounts Achieve this by integrating back-office functions and cross-training Combined staff meetings (frequent at the beginning) Updating polices and procedures together Sharing technology Improve services that both offices provide to student and families