By Becca Morrison

Assistant News Editor

Take a good look at the student financial statements as they appear now, because by next fall, they are not going to be the same. Their appearance is not all that will change. According to Director of Information Systems Todd Hubers, the statements will be reengineered to be more straightforward, accurate, and reliable.

Next fall, students will receive not one, but two billing statements to peruse and pay. No, this is not another way to confuse students. Splitting the statements is supposed to make it more straightforward. One statement will contain billing information having to do with tuition, room, and board. The other statement will have other charges students have made, including book charges, departmental charges, library fines, campus safety charges, etc. The first, or tuition, statement will continue to be sent out three times a semester. As with previous years, this statement will be mailed home to parents when requested. However, the second statement will only be sent to students; if they wish to send it to parents, they must do it themselves. This second statement will go out to students on a monthly basis.

As many students know, there have been problems during previous years as well as this year where billing statements were concerned. There has been the desire for change, and the opportunity to finally begin that change came last summer when the President of the Michigan Colleges Association approached our own President Byker. It seems this Association had secured some grant money to use for a College Business Process and wanted to know if Calvin had any processes to be reengineered. Faculty jumped at the chance, and Vice President for Administration, Finance, and Information Services Henry DeVries wrote a proposal for the student statements.

Calvin received the grant in the form of a Professional Consultant, who came to Calvin earlier this year to organize and give advice on the changing process. ``We never saw the grant money. It was sent directly from the Michigan Colleges Association to the Consultant,'' Hubers said. The grant amount was $40,000.

The Consultant was able to direct the ideas of faculty. ``We knew we wanted to change the process, we just didn't know how,'' Hubers said. ``He helped us nail down what we wanted to do.'' This consultant has worked with other colleges in the past, including Adrian and Hillsdale.

A committee for discussion of the statements was formed, including Hubers, Bursar Amy Deleeuw, one other person from Financial Services, two staff from the Financial Aid Office, three from CIT, and DeVries, who acts as sponsor. The committee meets every two weeks to discuss the progress of change and organize future changes. ``At first, we had to make a lot of big decisions, now we're to the smaller decisions to make it happen,'' Deleeuw said.

``The student statements rely on information received from throughout campus. Different departments give us charges all over the year,'' Deleeuw said. ``Financial Services is basically an accumulation of these charges.'' Because of this, billing add-ons sometimes get overlooked, or entered twice, or turned into Financial Services too late to add to the statement.

Faculty is working on automating the statement system to make it more accurate and timely. The first change that has already gone into effect involves the bookstore. Student charges made from the bookstore are now automatically transferred and posted on the computer. ``Before this was automated, student workers had to sit around all day manually posting this stuff. Last year there were over 18,000 manual postings of student bookstore charges,'' Deleeuw said.

The next step is to automate postings from other departments, including campus safety and the library. This way, the human interaction in the postings will be minimized, cutting mistakes down. Student staff at Financial Services will not be out of work however, as Deleeuw says there are many more jobs that have been on backup that she will put them to task on.

Another goal Hubers voiced is to see the financial statements available for viewing on KnightVision. He said he hoped it would be implemented in the ``near future'' and later specified to say ``sometime next year.'' However, it depends on how much time the other pieces concerning the statements take to put into Calvin's system.

Financial Services wants to get involved in the Passport session for freshmen. ``There are always lots of questions on the statements. Last fall, over 500 parents called Financial Services with inquiries on the first billing statement.'' Deleeuw said. ``We want to convey how to read them.'' They hope it will be fit into Passport in the upcoming year.

Sometime this summer, a group of students who will be on campus for one reason or another will be asked to get together and evaluate the new statements, including four or five different layout ideas.