Compliance and Reconciliation of Fee Remission

Graduate Student Employment Compliance

Throughout the quarter, Graduate Division regularly reviews UC Path and payroll data to make sure graduate students with active academic appointments are in compliance with the employment and fee remission eligibility standards.

On a monthly basis, payroll data is reviewed to be sure students whom received fee remission are actually on track to be eligible for the fee remission credits. Departments are contacted if there is a discrepancy. For example, Graduate Division reports are missing salary data for a student and therefor it appears the student may not actually be employed. However, upon contacting the department it is confirmed that the appointment was entered late in UC Path and a late salary payment is in process.

After the quarter closes, Graduate Division performs a complete review of all payroll data during the quarter for students whom received fee remission to ensure they met all eligibility and hourly requirements for their respective appointments during the quarter. Departments are contacted if it appears any students did not meet the requirement thresholds and fee remission needs to be reversed or if the payroll data appears to show a student should have received fee remission whom did not.

Another part of this process is making sure graduate students with academic appointments are registered in adequate units. Students are required to be registered in at least 8 units to be eligible to be employed in an academic title. Graduate Division reviews registration data for students with fee remission packages during the weeks leading up to the beginning of the quarter. Departments are notified if they have students with fee remission packages who are either not registered in at least 8 units. Graduate Division continues this review periodically throughout the quarter.

Graduate Student Employment Reconciliation

Department salary sources are charged for fee remission costs on a monthly basis during the quarter as part of the normal payroll process. Ideally, salary sources are charged in thirds since there are three payroll months in each quarter. For example, the ledger charges for a GSR with full resident-level fee remission for Spring 21 would breakdown like this:

April 21 ledger: $1507.50 tuition and $477.00 health insurance

May 21 ledger: $1507.51 tuition and $477.00 health insurance

June 21 ledger: $1507.50 tuition and $477.00 health insurance

However, there are numerous reasons why the charges may not work out like that. For example, a student’s appointment was entered late in UC Path so the first month is missed. The process will attempt to correct this by charging the fee remission costs in halves over ledger months two and three of the quarter. Another example is when the FTE of an appointment is increased or reduced resulting in the student changing from partial to full fee remission or vice versa. In this scenario the process starts the charges over which may result in the department salary source being overcharged.

Graduate Division performs a complete reconciliation of all fee remission charges during the quarter after the close of the quarter. Any uncharged fee remission costs are collected during this process. Likewise, any salary sources that were overcharged during the quarter are credited back the funds that were charged in error. Generally, this process happens 1-2 ledger months after the close of the quarter.