Regional Minutes

LeMoyne College

February 16, 2005

 

Attendance: Kate Bellefeuille, Kristen Carey, William Cheetham, Gerald Christie, Sheila Cooley, Kathy Flaherty, Sharon Halpin, Sharon Karwowski, Brian Levy,  Conor Linehan, Joe Martinkovic, Xavier Miranda, Nancy Pawlak, Michael Rivera, Christine Sears, Kristin Shea, Darcie Stephens, Michael Woody, Holly Zaglaniczny

 

Welcome:  Nancy Pawlak

 

Nancy thanked Bill Cheetham and the staff from LeMoyne for hosting the meeting.

 

Treasurer’s Report: 

 

The current treasury balance is $2,253.84

 

Executive Council Update:  Sharon Karwowski

 

The last meeting was held Feb 6- 8 at the Crowne Plaza-Albany. There was a discussion about the timely submission of regional treasury reports to the NYSFAAA State Treasurer. Consequently, the State Treasurer will now be listed on all regional accounts to serve as a check and balance. Region 3 received thanks from the Treasurer for submitting their quarterly reports on time.

 

Membership – The current NYSFAAA membership is 1,120; Region 3 has 170 members. (Our region has begun to collect attendance on the new Meeting Attendance Form.) Executive Council voted to extend Lifetime Membership to any recipient of the NYSFAAA Lifetime Achievement Award.

 

Professional Development – Although the presentation was very good, only 15-20 people attended the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Workshop. Plans are underway to schedule three more workshops. Tax workshops have been scheduled around the state. LeMoyne will host one of these workshops on Wednesday, March 2nd.

 

Conference 2004 – The final report is now available, in paper and CD form. The report will also be posted to the NYSFAAA website. This information will be useful in planning the conference Region 3 will be hosting.

 

HESC Update – The following changes have been made to senior management: Dr James Ross, President; Corinne Biviano (Cory), Executive Vice-President; Bonnie Evans, Manager of Customer Communication Center; Joanne Horn, Regional Service Manager for Region IV.

 

Anytime-TAP-on-the-Web is now available to those who miss the link when filing the FAFSA on-line, or who used the paper FAFSA. HESC has sent emails to students reminding them to file their 2005-2006 FAFSAs on-line and included instructions on the new TAP application process.

 

HESC has enhanced their default management programs. The Solutions Team can be reached via the Customer Communication Center, using “Quick Touch” selections 2,2,3,1.

 

PLUS Credit Checks - HESC will be phasing in their new PLUS credit checks over the next six months. A bulletin with detailed instructions is available on the HESC website. Go to “College Administrators and Lenders” – “Transaction Support” – “Bulletins and Announcements” – “Loan Program Bulletins”.

 

Doc-Trac – When using this service forward special handling documents to doctrac@hesc.org, or by fax to 1-518-473-1414.

 

A new HESC Agency Directory is now available.

 

Higher Ed Day at the State Fair - Executive Council voted to continue using NYSFAAA as the umbrella for this event. It will fall under the CAAN budget line.

 

Guidance Committee – Pat Johnson reported on the statewide success of the High School Counselor Workshops. Over 1,000 attendees were hosted at 13 sites.

 

Early Awareness – Nancy Pawlak reported on this project and distributed some of the more than 52,000 bookmarks which have been printed. More giveaways are planned.

 

Smith Barney – Rob Bell gave a presentation on the state of financial investments of NYSFAAA.

 

GEAR-UP – NYSFAAA will be partnering with HESC on this project. NYSFAAA is looking at brochures, posters and bookmarks which can be used for publicity, especially at the State Fair. $25,000 has been received by NYSFAAA

 

NASFAA – NYSFAAA voted to contribute $1,000 toward book purchases for the upcoming NASFAA Conference in New York City

 

Spring EAC Conference – This year’s agenda will look at the front end processing of financial aid, a new look for the spring conference.

 

Web Letter – The webletter will now be password protected so that it becomes a value of membership.

 

Legislative Day - February 8 was Higher Ed Day at the state legislative office building. Sharon met with Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton’s educational aide and Duncan Davie from Senator Seward’s Office. She presented NYSFAAA’s response to the 2005-2006 NY State Executive Budget Proposal.

 

A suggestion which originated in Region 3 for a statewide speakers’ bureau was presented. A NYSFAAA webpage will be created with information on both paid and unpaid speakers.

 

The next Executive Council meeting will be in April.

 

Membership comments – The legislative meetings were productive; Christine Sears shared that she had worked for Congressman Bill Magnorelli prior to working in financial aid and would be willing to work on legislative issues; the legislative forum which was held simultaneously could have benefited from more NYSFAAA participation, Holly Z will work on planning for this forum for next year.

 

Sharon has the following reports available for loan: Treasurer’s Report, NYSFAAA Membership Brochure, Conference 2004 – Final Report, New HESC Agency Directory, Smith-Barney Presentation on NYSFAAA financial investments.

 

State Update: Gerald Christie

 

In addition to those items reported by Sharon, Gerry mentioned there is now a FAQ section on TAP. Bill Cheetham asked if HESC could make available a generic credit history check for parents to allow them an idea on whether they would qualify for the PLUS loan. Holly indicated this was known as a “soft-check”.

 

The format of the HESC Update will be changed to a summary format with links for more information on the topics. Their information sharing meetings will now be customer comment meetings.

 

Regional Business

 

Pat Johnson has been looking for help with the Guidance Counselor Committee. Kate Bellefeuille has offered to co-chair this committee.

 

Nancy clarified the role of the regional chair in the selection of committee chairs. Initially, the committee membership may choose to recommend one of their group members to be chair of the group. The regional chair is involved in the final approval of the committee chairs. Each of the committees is in the process of updating their own section of the new procedural manual.

 

New Business

 

-          Tax Workshop will be held at LeMoyne College on March 2

-          Eileen Muhlig has done an excellent job as CAAN chair for the region. A new position within the region has been created for media representative. Eileen will now fill that role. It was suggested that someone from the region may wish to shadow Eileen in a supporting role. Bill commented that the role of media representative was previously outlined in the NYSFAAA Long Range Plan.

-          Website Committee Representative – this position is now open.

-          Regional Elections will be held this spring. Annette Broski is the Regional Election Chair. A call for nominations will go out in March, followed by elections in April, and announcement of results in May. Sharon commented that there is no cost to the region to post minutes to the web. However, there is a cost for new pages and for elections. ATEC can only handle one election activity at a time, so this may impact the ability to use the web for regional elections.

-          June meeting – start thinking about the format, topics and presentations

 

Old Business

 

            None.

 

The business portion of the meeting was adjourned at 11:05 A.M.

 

The group then broke into a round table discussion, led by Bill Cheetham, on several loan topics. These included borrower eligibility; eligibility when borrower is unwilling to repay; discharge due to permanent disability; PLUS eligibility; undergraduate taking grad courses in determining enrollment; PLUS denials; loan aggregates; loan consolidation

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Kathy Flaherty

Secretary, Region 3