Frenzy Financial Sense

The Financial Aid Office ishosting some great workshops starting Spring 2009 and we're all invited to come.

Here are some of the February FAFSA Frenzy Workshops:

• Every Tuesday from 1:00 - 2:00 pm in RAS 301 and every Wednesday at 6:00 pm at TVCC: Financial Aid 101 & Scholarship information.
• Every Thursday from 1:00 - 2:00 pm in RAS 301: Complete your FAFSA.

And they will have a table set up every weekday from 2:00 - 4:00 pm at the Wood Center.

Starting in March, they are hosting the Financial Sense Workshops every Thursday from 1:00 - 2:00 pm with the location TBA:

March 5 - Budgeting your money

March 19 - Understanding credit

March 26 - Student loans: Everything you need to know

April 9 - FAFSA follow-up

April 16 - Digging for gold: researching scholarships

April 23 - Learn to save

April 30 - Repaying your student loads

Skillsoft

This may be fading away! The current contract expires January 2009. It will cost $195K to extend the contract for an additional 3 years. Due to budget restraints Statewide is unable to fund the program. It is up to each MAU to share in the cost. We'll give you a final updates on Skillsoft's future next month.

December 15, 2008

GOOD NEWS ALL!!! It was announced in the Staff Council meeting on Friday that the Skillsoft contract has been approved to be extended for an additional 3 years. WOW!!

Child Care vs. Tuition Waiver

The President Cabinet is currently discussing incorporating child care as a benefit, possibly using the Tuition Waiver for cost. This would be a benefit to those who may have children and are not looking into taking classes at UAF. The Tuition Waiver could be exchanged to pay for child care. We will keep you informed as this discussion continues.

Budget & Compensation Revisited

A 4.5% "grid increase" has been requested for the FY2010 budget and it will probably be the last time a "grid increase" is used to include our step increases within the budget request. It looks like the System will not be going back to the old way of doing step increases. Other options are being investigated. The Staff Compensation Task Force (SCTF) is looking into other ideas, including merit-based raises, using an end-of-year bonus concept, and others. They are always looking for ideas, so feel free to pass them on if you have one.

There is also a high probability that health care premiums will be going up as early as July 1, 2009. There is still discussion and calculations to be made to determine exactly how much the increase will be; we will let you know as soon as we hear anything.

Another item SCTF is working on is the fact that the "grid increase" request for FY2010 is 4.5%. Being that the request is based on cost-of-living in Anchorage, which is currently already at 4.6%, the chance that the new rates almost definitely won't cover the cost-of-living increase in addition to the health care premium increase is incredibly high. The SCTF is meeting next week and hope to get some answers and ideas.