| PublicationDate: 5/23/2000 Summary: Federal Pell Grant Initial Authorization for 2000-2001 Author: PSS - Program Systems Service Posted on May 23, 2000 TO: All Destination Points FROM: Pell Grant Processing RE: Federal Pell Grant Initial Authorization for 2000-2001 THIS MESSAGE: - Announces the Processing of the 2000-2001 Initial Authorization for the Federal Pell Grant - When and where to view Initial Authorization Levels - The Purpose of Initial Authorizations The Recipient Financial Management System (RFMS) has begun processing the Federal Pell Grant Initial Authorization for 2000-2001 for advance funded schools. RFMS has begun to process Initial Authorizations for all Advance Funded Schools. Within the next few days the RFMS will establish the Initial Authorization level for your school for the 2000-2001 award year if you are an advance funded school. The funds will be available for you to draw down from GAPS beginning July 1, 2000. When and where to view Initial Authorization Levels After RFMS has processed your Initial Authorization for 2000-2001 an Electronic Statement of Account (ESOA) will be sent to your TIVWAN mailbox in the message class PGAS01OP. At the same time you can view your initial authorization amount on the RFMS website (http://www.pellgrantsonline.ed.gov) under the Accounting Balances section. Because the funds are not available until July 1, you will receive an error message at the top that states "Error: No SOA_SUMMARY record was found; Disbursement not available." The amount displayed is correct and you can disregard the error message. You will not be able to view the amount on the GAPS website (http://gapsweb.ed.gov) until July 1. The Purpose of Initial Authorizations Please keep in mind that the initial authorization is not intended to fund a school for the entire award year. This initial authorization provides the basis for immediate funding for the new award year. As each advance funded school submits disbursement batches the total accepted amount for each batch is applied to the initial authorization. When the batches total and exceed the amount of the initial authorization, the authorization will be increased to cover each additional batch as it is accepted. Also, please remember that the origination records do not increase your authorization level, only disbursement records increase authorizations. As in previous years the Department of Education determines the amount of each school's initial authorization through an analysis of the data submitted by the schools. Your authorization was determined based on a percentage of disbursement data that was submitted and accepted during the 1999-2000 award year. Since the initial authorization was based on a disbursement records that you submitted during the 1999-2000 award year and you may have encountered some start up problems with RFMS, you may ask for an increase to your initial authorization by submitting an email request to PELL_SYSTEMS@ED.GOV. Please note that due to processing of the initial authorization, some schools may notice a slight delay in the normal funding process for the 1999-2000 award year during the next week. This may occur because creation of the initial authorization is not part of normal processing and it runs at a time when routine processing is generated. You may also call the Pell Grant Hotline 1-800-4PGRANT (1-800-474-7268) if you have any questions concerning this matter. |