Day: January 18, 2022

The 4 Best Ways to Boost Enrollment

Growing enrollment in higher education is essential for generating revenue.

School budgets are primarily made up of tuition and state support based on the number of students enrolled in a per-pupil funding system. Public and private schools are in an intensive never-ending cycle of enrollment-driven anxiety-causing budget deficits. Higher education is experiencing the greatest decline in college enrollments in a decade with falling enrollment rates ranging from 4.9% to 9.5%.

Changing approaches has been crucial as schools face many unknowns and major shifts that recalibrate enrollment management. Unfortunately, this downward trend may be long term, and the need for schools to adapt long term to challenges, requires diversification of retention and recruitment approaches.

Moving forward, here are some proven strategies your team can borrow from other higher educational institutions to address enrollment:

Examine your structural framework: Engage in a strategic assessment of your enrollment management processes. Align your internal structural strategy with your enrollment goals along with any outside factors. At SUNY New Paltz, for example, this examination resulted in key streamlining shifts, giving more attention to online program delivery, and to broadening the existing scope of current employee’s roles when budgets don’t sustain hiring for new positions. An examination of how your school recruits and serves the student population can lead to more efficiency. Many structures and processes have served well in the past but refreshing the structural process will help you thrive in the future.
Investigate your Institutional Influence: Think about how your school is an agent of social power, with influence, that can optimize your capacity to meet more diverse students’ demands by changing outdated admissions and enrollment policies that can expand your reach. Organizations can influence the kind of policies they have, and they can achieve noble purposes such as publicly showing care for people. One specific public policy change occurred during the pandemic. In 2020, the admission process did not require standardized test scores like the SAT or ACTs. This policy was loosened up to be more inclusive, shifting the value of an applicant beyond a test score and it removes barriers for underrepresented populations and makes room for more equitable enrollments. Admissions officers can choose to allow tests to be optional because arguably tests do not tell the full story of a candidate. Diversity policies provide a competitive advantage when it comes to increasing enrollment and currently works in unison with current social movements.
Invest in Relationship Building: Another useful tactic to increase enrollment is building trusting relationships that tap into what students specifically want or need in order to motivate them to choose your school. Your school can generate feelings of being known, cared for, and supported when they nurture relationships with prospective students by showing genuine interest and maintaining connections. Form personal connections that matter by making phone calls, sending birthday cards, inviting them to join special events, sending a handwritten note, allowing prospective students to try out courses, or making a customized video of their tour. Relationship building can help match students to the best fitting schools by narrowing down a larger pool of prospective enrollees into more seriously interested applicants that finally enroll. Interested families will become more and more excited about your school during the recruitment process as you make efforts to understand what is driving their decisions. It is financially imperative to emphasize common goals as students and organizations rely upon one another. It helps students decide on the fit and commit to your school.
Tell a Good Story: Good stories convey cultural information about our school’s morals, values, and beliefs. Make your school story memorable, convincing, and distinguishing. The story should carry history and reinforce the school’s identity. Crafting and continually renewing a strong school story using technological tools is an indispensable plan of action to reinforce enrollment management practices. With dynamic communication methods, schools can publicize marketing messages that highlight institutional stories to attract students to enroll. Help them to believe your school is where they belong, providing a narrative of hope for their futures.

Here at RBT, our team is experienced with handling the unique financial pressures your school is up against. We hope these strategies will help your school redefine needs and evolve through the enrollment struggle. If you’d like to know more, our dedicated education team is here to help develop a personalized long-term strategy for your school. Please feel free to contact us today to connect. Additionally, if you would like to submit topic ideas for future articles our team produces, please feel free to contact us at TLideas@rbtcpas.com.

Patient Satisfaction & Your Financial Future

Healthcare and the delivery of healthcare services is often a matter of life and death and there has been an increased intensity of those in need of medical help and, as a result, a significant increase in the demanding workload on the healthcare workforce.

Patients deserve quality care and healthcare employees deserve on-the-job satisfaction to provide quality care. Thoughtful considerations must go into how stressful and challenging the work of a healthcare provider is and how it impacts patients with either a negative or positive outcome as it links to public investment in hospital care. To succeed in 2022, healthcare organizations must address this concerning connection to sustain high-quality healthcare readiness and the funding that makes access possible.

According to News: Medical Life Sciences, 2021 studies show that there is a critical link between hospitals’ healthcare compensation, healthcare workers’ well-being, and patient satisfaction surveys. It is impossible to separate this idea from The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service (CMS), whose goal is to empower consumers and hold hospitals accountable for improving care by implementing the Medicare payment system that ties patient care experiences with hospital reimbursement rates. Since 2008, CMS endorses the publishing of the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) scoring system that provides qualitative data to rate patient experiences using Value Based Performance Standards (VBP). Specifically, all the dimensions surveyed are consumer-driven factors that contribute to well-being and satisfaction, such as the conditions of the hospital environment (noise level, cleanliness), the social climate (interactions, responsiveness), and information access (discharge, care transition). When any of these factors are receiving unsatisfactory or poor scores, it can negatively affect healthcare employees’ job satisfaction due to significant stressors, thereby affecting customer satisfaction–and hospital funding. Let’s face it, there are billions of dollars from Medicare at stake.

Certainly, the stressors of the still raging pandemic in the healthcare field highlight the need to address and prevent undue burdens on our healthcare professionals as we move into 2022. The real burdens of occupational pressures on the healthcare providers on the front lines translate into their ability to provide quality care experiences. Patient experiences of care across the nation certainly reflect the caregiver’s burden in the HCAHPS VBP scores so healthcare leaders can utilize this data in practical and useful ways. Healthcare organizations have an obligation to fundamentally do good by their healthcare professionals and consequently increase positive outcomes for patients.

What steps can you take to boost patient satisfaction and secure healthcare funding?

Ensure adequate funding and allocate funding resourcefully
Elicit feedback from healthcare professionals to allow for emerging new ideas
Provide empowerment opportunities to those who feel a lack of control over their work
Be transparent; share knowledge
Establish systems or support from senior staff
Let employees know they are valued
Create equitable engaging training to keep up to date
Foster healing and recovery for healthcare providers

Approach care from an honest, open, empathetic stance
Encourage healthcare professionals to invest in patients

The satisfaction of the patients is largely dependent upon the healthcare workforce they encounter in adverse situations.

The perceptions of patients are key to acknowledge as it influences healthcare funding as we head into 2022. KFF offers an overview and funding facts on Medicare spending, showing that Medicare was 15% of the total federal spending in 2018 which totaled $605 billion; further, Medicare spending is projected to rise to 18.3% percent from 2019 to 2029, increasing spending to $1.3 trillion in 2029. By enhancing the well-being of healthcare workers, hospitals will be better able to retain and recruit healthcare workers, provide quality care, increase customer satisfaction, and plan to respond to future public health threats.

Here at RBT CPAs, we understand the diverse and complicated world of healthcare. Our team of healthcare experts brings industry expertise in reimbursement, regulatory compliance and audit, accounting, and tax services. We will continue to keep you notified of timely news that matters to you and your team, but if you’d like to connect and receive individualized services, please contact us today. If you would like to submit feedback or topic ideas for future articles our team produces, please feel free to contact us at TLideas@rbtcpas.com.

Sources: News-Medical, News-Medical, CMS, CMS, Relias, AMA, News-Medical, KFF

New Year’s Resolution: Revising Contracts

What’s your New Year’s resolution?

Want to get in shape, or maybe get more organized? How about taking care of some annual business tasks that you may be putting off, like cleaning up your contracts? It’s the perfect time of year to knock this often neglected item off your to-do list.

Many manufacturers fail to annually review and revise contracts – but the reality is you really can’t afford to skip this step.

The ongoing supply chain dilemma is largely consumer-driven, and manufacturers worldwide have been wholly unprepared to handle the pandemic’s perfect storm of increased demand coupled with resource reduction. While some analysts anticipate a return to normality in late 2022, others say the economic turbulence could last for another 24-36 months. Can contract reviews be tedious? Yes. Are carefully crafted contracts also central to your financial success in the New Year? Absolutely. Below, we’ll outline some critical steps your manufacturing team should consider taking as we ring in 2022, to ensure your customers are satisfied, and your contracts are working for you.

Rising materials prices make it crucial for manufacturers to limit risk in their client agreements.

Bottlenecks, delays, equipment shortages, and shutdowns have created disruptions across the board leaving some manufacturers in precarious positions. At this point, we can all agree that pandemic clauses are necessary, not only due to COVID-19 but also to protect from future pandemics and similar situations. To avoid being tied up in unrealistic contracts and producing for a loss because of mounting material costs, carving out changing cost clauses will be essential in 2022 and beyond. Cost structure changes are necessary during these tumultuous times. Manufacturers should typically hold prices for a specified number of days but should have a clause in the agreement stating that if the contract is not released for production in a set number of days, then a price adjustment can be made by the manufacturer.

In response to increased price volatility in the current market, it’s wise to insert extremely open-ended language in the contract itself and/or in the manufacturer’s clarifications exhibit attached to the contract, which entitles the manufacturer to a change order for any increase in materials pricing throughout the manufacturing process. As these provisions shift 100% of the risk to the client, manufacturers should be prepared for clients to try to tailor the contract to share the risk. Some clients may include a contingency line item to address certain unforeseen costs that arise during manufacturing, including materials price increases.

Another approach some may take is to set a threshold percentage above which the client covers price increases and below which the manufacturer bears the risk. Here, the client and manufacturer would agree that the client covers the amount of increased cost if the cost incurred is 10% above the line-item amount shown in the schedule of values. If, for example, the cost of lumber increases by only 9%, then the manufacturer is responsible for all of the increased cost. However, if the cost of lumber increases by 15%, then the manufacturer is responsible for 10% of the increased cost, and the client must cover the remaining 5% of the increased cost. This approach sets a clear standard for addressing price increases and may provide enough flexibility to allow the price volatility to subside.

The time is now to ask yourself, is your team operating as cost-effectively as you can be?

The start of a New Year signals fresh opportunities to recharge, reinvigorate, and reinvent your practices. Dedicate some valuable time to examine your process and determine what’s working, and what’s not. Of course, there’s no one size fits all approach for your operation, and each client relationship is unique. Regardless of how you approach current and future contracts, the most important thing to remember is to address the uncertainty of material price escalation clearly. The information contained in this article is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice on any subject matter. We highly recommend you contact your attorney to thoroughly review all contract language. If you have any questions for our team of financial and tax professionals or would like help evaluating what effect increasing materials prices may have upon your latest project, please do not hesitate to contact our dedicated team.

Source: NYSHEX

How the Wage Theft Bill is changing the Construction Industry in 2022

The New Year brings with it new opportunities for growth, new projects to begin, and also, new laws to follow.

In 2021, New York State passed legislation that went into effect earlier this month, which shifts liability to general contractors for wage theft cases on private construction projects.

Up until now, construction contractors weren’t liable for their subcontractors’ employees’ wages unless there was an employment relationship between the contractor and the employee of the subcontractor. But this law which went into effect Jan. 4th, 2022, makes contractors on construction projects jointly liable for wages owed to employees of their subcontractors. It also allows contractors to demand payroll information from subcontractors and withhold payment if the information is not provided. The law exempts home-improvement contracts except for the construction of more than ten one- or two-family owner/occupied dwellings.

Advocates say the law will incentivize general contractors to be more selective in the hiring of subcontractors, with the hope that greater oversight will promote safer working conditions on construction sites and force illegitimate subcontractors out of the industry. Opponents vocalize various concerns about the new law, including the belief that it overcomplicates the process for contractors.

Assembly member Latoya Joyner said, “This legislation protects the interests of hardworking construction workers over unscrupulous subcontractors. Wage theft is a crime of opportunity that disproportionately affects people who are already living paycheck to paycheck.”

The New York State Building & Construction Trades Council, representing more than 200,000 unionized employees, called the bill’s passage a “monumental victory for working people.”

Meanwhile, the Associated General Contractors of New York State, which represents construction employers, oppose the legislation.

While the group supports wage theft prevention, they view the legislation unfavorably because it extends liability for up to three years after a project has been completed. The new law “creates an unmanageable level of risk for general contractors,” according to Mike Elmendorf, CEO of AGC NYS. He says it “slows payments to subcontractors, and raises the cost of construction.”

Whatever your stance is, in order to reduce exposure to wage claims under the new law, New York contractors need to act now. It’s a best practice to consider revising standard contracts and developing procedures for collecting the information that contractors are entitled to receive from subcontractors under the new law. Specifically, upon a contractor’s request, a subcontractor must provide:

Certified payroll records containing “sufficient information to apprise the contractor…of such subcontractor’s payment status in paying wages and making any applicable fringe or other benefit payments or contributions to a third party on its employee’s behalf”;
The names of all of the subcontractor’s workers (including independent contractors) on a project;
The name of the contractor’s subcontractor with whom such subcontractor is under contract;
The subcontractor’s contract start date and duration of work;
The identity of unions with which the subcontractor is a signatory; and
Contact information for the subcontractor’s designated contact.

If a subcontractor at any tier fails to provide the above-mentioned information, the contractor may withhold payment otherwise due to that subcontractor. Make sure you are operating at peak financial efficiency by leaving your financial statements, internal auditing, and overall business analyses to a professional and reputable team. At our company, we prioritize developing a positive relationship that helps you prepare for the future and all of the uncertainty that comes with it. Contact us to discuss your specific team needs today, we are dedicated to helping our construction clients achieve success.

Sources: Governor.NY.GOV, NYSenate.Gov

$100 Million in Funding for NY Shelter

All across the state, the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has exposed the true extent of housing insecurity and made it even more challenging for struggling New Yorkers to pay rent.

The Hudson Valley continues to face intense housing pressures and rapid price escalations. Change has already come to many local communities – much of it with the potential to cause widespread displacement. How local government manages that change and protects our most vulnerable community members should remain top of mind as we enter 2022.

On a local level, we have continued to see the number of those experiencing homelessness rise over recent years, and the need for supportive services is greater than ever throughout the region.

Consider the most recent (pre-pandemic) data from non-profit Hudson River Housing. Between 2015 and 2019, the rate of homelessness grew by 42% in Dutchess County. The rate of homelessness is much higher in Dutchess County than in other parts of New York (excluding NYC) and slightly higher than the national rate of homelessness. What can be done? Funding is on the way, and you need to know how to access it. Governor Kathy Hochul recently announced new funding for counties to better assist at-risk populations as we enter 2022 and beyond.

$100 million in new funding is headed to counties to help homeless individuals and families leave the shelter system for a permanent home by providing rental assistance. The funds may also help very low-income New Yorkers pay their rent and increase their housing security. Administered by the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA), the New York State Rental Supplement Program will provide funding to localities in all 57 counties and New York City to offer rental assistance to individuals and families experiencing homelessness or facing the imminent loss of housing. The Rental Supplement Program is now the primary state-funded rental assistance program available for New Yorkers struggling to pay rent. Adopted as part of the FY2022 budget, the program is providing nearly $68 million for New York City and more than $32 million to all other counties throughout the state. Counties will have the flexibility to develop a program that meets the needs of their underserved populations.

Who is eligible to receive financial assistance?

Households seeking the rent supplement may earn no more than 50% of the Area Median Income (AMI) to be eligible. Initial priority will be given to those earning 30% or less. Half of the supplements are earmarked for families or individuals that are in shelters or experiencing homelessness, and the program is available to all eligible households, regardless of their immigration status.

Rental supplement amounts will be funded at 85% of the local fair-market rent values, with localities having the option to pay up to 100% by using local funds. A household receiving the supplement will contribute no more than 30% of their total earned income toward their monthly rent. The supplement can only be used for upcoming rental payments, with local social service districts determining coverage for arrears, which can only be paid with local funds.

Each county or locality must opt into the program and submit a distribution plan to OTDA. They may choose to directly administer their allocation or delegate it to another public agency, contractor, or non-profit organization.

While the precariousness of housing has increased for many, the greater attention on housing issues has raised awareness about the housing crisis that we know has existed for decades.

New York State is now a national leader in rent relief funds distributed, with the full initial allotment of more than $2.1 billion fully obligated. At RBT, we understand that local government officials are facing enormous pressures. You can find added value in working with professionals who understand your governmental sector and the unique factors which impact your entity. Since 1969, our governmental clients have depended on RBT CPAs, LLP professionals for assistance with all types of financial issues, and we’re here to help you, too. Give us a call if you have questions or would like to set up a consultative appointment.

Sources: Governor.Ny.Gov, Hudson River Housing