In its November 5th Electronic Announcement, Federal Student Aid (FSA) included a reminder that corrections to your Fiscal Operations Report for 2020 and Application to Participate for 2022-2023, otherwise known as FISAP, are due by December 15th, 2021. If you’re not familiar with FISAP, you can read more about it here or check out our July blog highlighting the changes made by the CARES Act. When might you need to make corrections? Read on to find out!
First, before December 15th, every school should reconcile the amounts reported on the FISAP in Part IV, Section E, Field 17-Expended Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (FSEOG) Authorization, and Part V, Section E, Field 18-Expended Federal Work-Study (FWS) Authorization with the actual amounts drawn down from G5. If the expenditures reported in FISAP were less than what was originally allocated, the final authorization amount will be reduced to match and the de-obligated funds will no longer be available to your institution, which could result in the need to use institutional funds to make up the difference if new awards were made after FISAP filing. Conversely, if your institution drew down more funds from G5 than the expenditures reported in its FISAP, the institution will be expected to return the ‘unexpended’ funds.
So, in short, the FISAP edit period allows you to ensure the total amount of campus-based funds reported as expended is consistent with the amount drawn down for the period. Uncorrected under- or over- estimates of the final award total will cost your institution.
Additionally, if you had any validation errors on your original FISAP submission, now is the time to correct them, and explain why the reported information is accurate despite the lack of validation.
Institutions may be able to submit corrections after December 15 in some cases. The FISAP Change Request Monitoring Team will make the determination whether to accept or decline these changes(s). The following changes can never be made after the stated deadline:
- Increase in requests for funds in Part II, Section A.
- Increase in Administrative Cost Allowance (ACA) amount spent in Part III, Section B, item 8; Part IV, Section D, item 15; and Part V, Section D, item 15.
- Increase in cumulative Administrative Cost Allowance (ACA) amount in Part III, Section A, item 34.1 if the change is not supported by the data reported in Section B, item 8 on prior FISAPs.
Finally, after editing and validating your FISAP, remember to save and submit it.