The Monthly Memo

Please visit our web page. The site address is: heab.state.wi.us

Points of Interest:

1. To all schools using the HEAB templates for file maintenance and voucher requests: Please refer to the Frequently Asked Questions section on the HEAB web page (http://HEAB.state.wi.us) where you will find the formatting guides for both templates. Please use the guides and verify that both templates are formatted exactly the way the guides indicate. There have been an increasing number of problems with files not being formatted properly when they had been fine previously and this means that the file maintenance changes and/or voucher requests that have been submitted aren't going through. Please contact Barb Moermond (barbara.moermond@HEAB.state.wi.us) if you have any questions.

2. Please be aware that at the end of 1999-00 there will be a June 15, 2000 deadline for submitting all adds, changes, vouchers, and refunds.

3. Even though next year's student records are beginning to arrive, please do not sending file maintenance, etc., for next year yet. Our targeted start up for 00-01 is April, 2000.

4. The Board met February 25th and approved the following formulas for the 2000-01 academic year:

   UW WHEG

   The following formula will be used for both dependent and independent students.

   Student Budget	$3,000
   Minus	EFC
   X Award %	50%
   =	Award

   MAXIMUM AWARD IS $1,500

   WTC WHEG

   The following formula will be used for both dependent and independent students.

   Student Budget	$7,000
   Minus	EFC
   X Award %	15%
   =	Award

   MAXIMUM AWARD IS $1,050

   TRIBAL COLLEGE WHEG

   The following formula will be used for both dependent and independent students.

   Student Budget	$6,560
   Minus	EFC
   X Award %	27.44%
   =	Award

   MAXIMUM AWARD IS $1,800

   WTG

   UW Tuition = $3,735

   Inflationary Factors
   

   Dependent	251%
   Single/married Ind.	674%
   Ind. + dependents	814%

   Base Maintenance

   Dependent/Single Ind.	$6,245
   Ind. + dependents/married Ind.	$10,444

   MAXIMUM AWARD $2,300

   The next Board meeting will be held April 28, 2000. Financial Aid Administrators are represented on the Board by Mary Jo Green of Mid State Technical College, Sr. Mary Beth Kornely of Silver Lake College, and Steve Van Ess of UW Madison. Copies of the various February Board Reports are in the process of being added to HEAB's website.

   [Please follow this link to the February 25, 2000 Board Report]

5. Based on additional information from the Federal Department of Education, TIP grants must be considered Title IV funds in the "return of funds" calculation.

6. Due to demand, an extra HEAB Training Session HAS BEEN ADDED ON APRIL 20, 2000. The March and May sessions are full. The next three training sessions after May are:
   July 20, 2000
   September 21, 2000
   November 16, 2000

   The program begins at 10:00 a.m. and ends no later than 3:00 p.m. It is held at the HEAB offices at 131 W. Wilson St, Suite 902, Madison, WI. We have room for up to 6 people at each session.

   If you want to register for a session or need more information, please call Jim Buske at (608) 267-9865 or send email to james.buske@heab.state.wi.us.

Points Related to Processing:

1999-2000

1. 1999-2000 notification lists and other associated reports are scheduled to print 3/14/00 and 3/28/00.

   Here are a few tips for bringing in your electronic Notification Files:

   1. set all margins to 0.25"
   2. set paper orientation to landscape
   3. set font to Courier (or Lucida Console if you have it)
   4. set point size to 9

   Also, if you encounter problems opening the file directly from email, try saving it to your server or hard drive using either Notepad or WordPad to open it. If this doesn't work, please give Barb Moermond a call at (608) 266-3091 and she will work with you to try to find a solution.

2. We continue to run the 1999-2000 vouchering process on Tuesday and Friday nights of each week. Just a reminder that we cannot guarantee that your request can be loaded on the same day it has been received if the information arrives after 12NOON. Please keep in mind that it takes two to three business days after the vouchering process runs before checks are physically printed. So please plan accordingly. Please only voucher funds for students who are registered for coursework. Contact me if you have any questions.

3. If your school transfers data to HEAB via an FTP site, please notify Barb Moermond at barbara.moermond@heab.state.wi.us as soon as possible whenever any changes in your FTP set-up, software, IP, etc. occur. Once notified, Barb will make all the necessary changes that need to be made at our end in order for HEAB to continue to be able to transfer data to and from your school.

4. There have been a number of schools who have been sending file maintenance for students who are not enrolled at their school. Therefore, new awards keep recalculating based on file maintenance sent in by the school where the student is not attending. The school where the student is attending has to keep sending file maintenance to correct what the other school has sent. To eliminate this problem, please only send file maintenance for students who you know are attending or plan to attend your school.

5. Please be aware that if you request a disbursement of less than $250 for a term or a semester or if the student has used nine semesters of eligibility, the voucher request is manually handled through a "special voucher" which is run on Wednesday nights.

6. Also be aware that you cannot voucher funds for a student you just sent FAFSA changes for to the federal processor. Please voucher funds for students after they are reflected on the notification list. Our agency will calculate an award the Tuesday or Friday night after file maintenance is received or after the student is loaded from the federal record (which we draw down daily). However, the notification list which communicates the student award to you is run every other Tuesday. Please keep all of this in mind when you are making student record changes or vouchering funds. Please also keep in mind that we calculate awards on the most recent information that is received either through file maintenance or from the federal processor.

7. Just another reminder that students can receive up to ten semesters of a combination of WHEG/WTG rather than ten semesters of each.

8. 1999-2000 award commit for WHEG and WTG is as follows:

   UW WHEG Award Commit	=	132.05%	(last year at this time it was 130.58%)
   UW WHEG Award Spent	=	88.53%	(last year at this time it was 92.18%)
   WTC WHEG Award Commit	=	152.72%	(last year at this time it was 164.15%)
   WTC WHEG Award Spent	=	89.60%	(last year at this time it was 95.20%)
   WTG Award Commit	=	110.65%	(last year at this time it was 113.47%)
   WTG Award Spent	=	85.11%	(last year at this time it was 95.54%)

Jane Hojan-Clark, Executive Secretary
Wisconsin Higher Educational Aids Board