Management?s Views and Corrective Action Plan The University implemented two new systems (Student Information System ? Workday, and Financial Aid System ? PowerFaids) that each are an important part of managing our Federal Student Aid. Most of the building and configuring of these systems happened...
Management?s Views and Corrective Action Plan The University implemented two new systems (Student Information System ? Workday, and Financial Aid System ? PowerFaids) that each are an important part of managing our Federal Student Aid. Most of the building and configuring of these systems happened prior to FY22 with the full launch in production taking place for the Fall 2021. Understandably, some of the integrations of these two systems were not able to be tested prior to Fall of 2021 (ex: actual disbursement of federal loans) and therefore, required significant time and effort in the Fall and beyond to ensure everything worked and students were able to receive funding while also building out and documenting required communications, processes, and compliance protocols. Additionally, we had turnover within the Associate Director of Financial Aid and Loan Manager role in March 2022. The implementation coupled with this staffing issue created a one-time set of circumstances that are outside of the standard oversight and management of our Federal Student Aid funds and processes. Please refer to the response to each individual finding as follows: Finding 2022-002: Borrower data and reconciliation reporting Award Information Cluster: Student Financial Assistance Agency: Department of Education Award Name: Federal Direct Student Loans Award Year: July 1, 2021 ? June 30, 2022 Assistance Listing Number: 84.268 As mentioned above, the University implemented two brand new systems (Student Information System ? Workday, and Financial Aid System ? PowerFaids) that each are an important part of managing our Federal Student Aid. During the first month of the Fall term there were significant challenges with the communication between these systems, which resulted in our first group of loans being disbursed in the last few days of September 29, 2021. It is a known issue that any loans that disburse at the end of the month are not included in the Federal SAS Reconciliation file and as a result this disbursement resulted in significant errors. Ultimately, the University was not able to finalize this reconciliation for this month. As mentioned above, the Financial Aid Office was restructured to provide even greater oversight over our Federal funds. Under the restructured office, the new Associate Director and Manager of Loans and Pell Grants has documented all processes, including reconciliation. Additionally, we created an automated report that is generated after the SAS is received and loaded into PowerFaids. A notification is sent to both the Associate Director/Loan Manager as well as the Director of Financial Aid Systems, Reporting and Compliance to provide documentation that the report was run. The Loan Manager reports to the Director of Financial Aid Systems, Reporting and Compliance who signs the completed SAS reconciliations. This process was fully put into place, including signature, for the 2022-2023 academic year beginning with the September 2022 Reconciliation. The Director of Financial Aid Systems, Reporting and Compliance, Amanda Galban, who can be reached at amanda.galban@simmons.edu, is responsible for the implementation of this corrective action plan.