Name of Responsible Individual: Keith Anderson, Associate Provost, Office of Undergraduate Studies; Paapa Berko, Federal Work-Study Coordinator; Tina Knight, Director, Center for Career & Professional Success; Ben Carmichael, Associate Director for Compliance, Enrollment Management; Dani Hollis, Ass...
Name of Responsible Individual: Keith Anderson, Associate Provost, Office of Undergraduate Studies; Paapa Berko, Federal Work-Study Coordinator; Tina Knight, Director, Center for Career & Professional Success; Ben Carmichael, Associate Director for Compliance, Enrollment Management; Dani Hollis, Associate Director of Operations & Customer Service; John Hooth, Senior Director of Payroll; Sasha Quinga, Senior Director, Human Resources Information Systems
Corrective Action: Federal Work Study (FWS) supervisors are required to have training on the appropriate policies and procedures when hiring a FWS student. They sign off on the Federal Work Study supervisor agreement stating they understand they must follow these procedures and losing the privilege of hiring FWS students can be the result of not following these policies and procedures. One of these policies is that students cannot have time approved prior to working those hours, as this is a not a best practice. The Center for Career & Professional Success began using this updated FWS supervisor agreement beginning with the Spring 2025 semester. All FWS supervisors who had students for Fall 2024 were required to review and sign the updated agreement as well.
The Federal Work Study Coordinator (located in the Center for Career & Professional Services) is responsible for reviewing the hours a student works. The Federal Work Study Coordinator also ensures supervisors have approved the correct number of hours and the hours were approved after the student worked those hours. The full-time Federal Work Study Coordinator position was filled prior to the end of the Fall 2024 semester, and this ensures a full-time employee is now in place to help provide a more active review of the Federal Work Study program.
One student was not paid FWS earnings within 30 days. At the time, Howard University did not print out paper checks, only providing FWS payments as a direct deposit. The student was to be paid for those two pay periods (10/8/23-10/21/23 and 10/22/23-11/4/23) on 11/3/23 and 11/17/23. The student did not have any payment selections set up in the system for the earnings to be deposited into and this delayed the receipt of the Federal Work Study payment. Working with the AVP for Enrollment Management, we have discussed with Payroll the need to process a paper check if a student chooses this delivery method. The University is also working on an awareness campaign that will encourage students to set up their direct deposit information in Workday. Students understanding the need to set up direct deposit and the willingness to process paper checks, if necessary, should prevent this finding from recurring.
The Associate Director for Compliance or designee will review when the supervisor approved the students’ hours as a part of the bi-semester Federal Work Study sample. These reviews are completed to ensure students are paid on-time and accurately, as well as ensure the student is not working during class hours. These reviews of FWS hours matching the students’ earnings will provide another layer of oversight.
Anticipated Completion Date: The Center for Career and Professional Services hired a full-time Federal Work Study Coordinator towards the end of the Fall 2024 semester. All FWS supervisor training occurs prior to the hire of any FWS students, and the supervisor agreement has been updated as of December 2024 to reflect supervisors signing they understand students are not to have time approved prior to working those hours. The awareness campaign encouraging students to choose the direct deposit option in Workday will begin in late Spring as the Fall 2025 class prepares to enter Howard.