WVRHEP Finance Subcommittee
Mountain Health Consortium-Braxton LRC
Participants: Joan Hypes, Chuck Conner, David Hughes, Jay Prager, Tommy Mullins, Tom Hefner, Gaye Mitchell, Robert Harman, Anna Reno, Imogene Foster, Jim Harding, Bob Whitler, Hilda R. Heady, Margaret Novacich
The meeting opened with Jim Harding from Doak, Cuppett & Poling. He explained the process citing the difference in sites and that a standardization has been attempted.
Mr. Harding began the discussion with “Part 1: Reporting and
Record Keeping”. Monthly Reporting Requirements & Details
These reports should be able to be set up so that the consortia can file them electronically. It was questioned if it mattered whether the consortia used a cash accounting or accrual basis of accounting. Cash accounting may be used on the monthly reports, but the annual reports must use the accrual method. The committee also discussed whether quarterly reports would be sufficient. There is some question as to how this affects the consortia that don’t have the same fiscal quarters as the RHEP program. It has been decided that quarterly reporting will be used with probationary consortia or others at the discretion of the RHEP Advisory Panel to be placed on a monthly cycle.
Carryover acquired prior to FY 2002 could be budgeted at the discretion of the sites, but beginning FY 2002, the carryover would remain in the category it carried over from (salaries, operating expense, capital expenditure, housing).
The purpose of this report is to revamp the annual reporting that has been used in the past. The sites will not longer be required to estimate their expenses for the remaining three months of the fiscal year. Consortia would have until August 15th to submit the annual report.
RHEP must be included in the “non-Federal funds” section of the Lead Agency Audit.
Expenditure
Documentation.
The subcommittee discussion centered on item #9. It was mentioned that if the amount listed as capital expenditure has already been approved in the RHEP budget request from a consortia, then why should the consortia be required to seek additional approval before making the purchase. Therefore, consortia will be required to document how the amount shown in their project budget as “capital expenditures” is to be used. Changes to this plan will need to be approved before the funds can be spent.
Item #5 will only pertain to carryover funds acquired after FY 2002. This policy will not pertain to carryover funds accumulated between FY 1992 and FY 2001. Interest accumulated in periods after FY 2002 will be subject to the 20% usage policy.
Discussion from Lead Agency administrators regarding the fact that sometimes they are required to “carry” RHEP until the next payment is received. The current schedule is 20%, 20%, 25%, 25% and 10%. DC&P are proposing a change to 20%, 25%, 25%, 25% and 5%. Margaret explained that her understanding was this schedule was necessary due to the timing and amount of income into the State coffers. It is suggested that Margaret check again with the Auditor General’s office to determine if another schedule can be adopted.
Margaret was asked to send the “Reporting and Record Keeping” portion of this discussion to all Lead Agencies and Site Coordinators for their input.
Jim Harding then went into the explanation of the possible funding methodology. They have tried to base it on fixed and variable amounts using a weighted value of student weeks. The first spreadsheet showed a formula that adopted 90% of the current budget and based the remaining 10% on weighted student weeks. Fixed costs were determined by averaging standard operating costs that all sites have. DCP suggested that multiple sites be funded at 75% of the first site. It has been decided that this does not work and all sites will be funded at 100% of the average costs. With this change, the fixed budget will be 92,250 for one main site, 184,500 for two main sites, and 276,750 for three main sites. The discussion then centered on the field faculty/preceptor budgets. During the phase in period of year one, there is not much change to the consortia budgets. For the proceeding years, there is a big disparity in funding. While all those at the meeting agreed that this may be a sound methodology, it lowers too many consortia budgets while giving substantial increasing to the larger consortia
After Jim Harding explained how these amounts were determined by DCP, it was decided that we would ask them to go back to the drawing board and see if there are any other methods that could be developed. They will have some other proposals ready for the subcommittee at the May 14th meeting.
This meeting will be at the Days Inn, Flatwoods and begin at