WVRHEP Finance Sub-Committee Working Meeting
November 27th, 2000
Days Inn

Attendees:  Chuck Conner, Imogene Foster, Robert Harman, Hilda R. Heady, Gaye Mitchell, Penny Asbury (for Tommy Mullins), Margaret Novacich, Anna Reno.  David Hughes was unable to attend due to a death in his family.

Meeting began at 9:45.  Sub-Committee began with the work list from the November 13th meeting.
1. The need to develop a final budget request to the Legislature

2. The need to decide on a process to allocate funding.

3. Evaluate processes for policy recommendations.

Margaret told the committee that after reviewing the "wish lists" with the sites, it has been determined that none of the sites took into consideration the HEPC request of $500,000.  That means that the "wish lists" would be funded from the HEPC request and any additional funding the program would receive.  The total amount of the projected request including site wishes, PERD implementation and fiscal monitoring totals $1.7 million.

Hilda told the sub-committee that she believed the maximum request that could be considered is $1.2 million.  The HEPC is advocating an increase of $500,000 that was the amount requested last year.  Any additional requests will need to be advocated by the communities.  She also stated that she and Dr. Weston are scheduled to meet with Governor-Elect Wise on Wednesday.  Hilda hopes that we won't find ourselves in a situation where the amount of new funding awarded by the Legislature is only sufficient to fund the PERD Report.

Hilda asked Margaret if the Evaluation committee believed its budget could be reduced.  Discussion with Jodie Jackson determined that the school members from Marshall, WVSOM and WVU who are working on this project could not be reduced without jeopardizing the entire project.  There is no room for reduction in the Evaluation budget.

The sub-committee then discussed how to reduce the "wish lists" and develop accountability on line item guidelines.  It was determined that a formula and mechanism should be developed to set the guidelines, but the sub-committee can't set the actual amounts.  Funding formulas will be developed by the sub-committee to determine the levels of funding at each consortia, but the local consortia boards will have home rule to develop the spending budgets as they have in the past.

The issue of Field Faculty payments and preceptor costs has arisen as a main funding factor.  There is a wide variance of funding requests throughout the state for this expense.  The sub-committee has decided to develop a formula to determine the level of funding that will be awarded to each consortium to fund faculty and preceptors.  This will be based on the average cost per student week statewide.  It will be up to the local consortia boards to work with their faculty and preceptors.

The sub-committee gave Hilda permission to seek additional funding of $700,000 and will use the time between now and the opening of the Legislative session to develop budgets to fit the funding request.

The next meeting of the Sub-Committee will be by conference call on December 15th at 10:00.  Information regarding the conference call will follow from Margaret.  The meeting adjourned at 11:30 a.m.