Roadrunner Kudos Award

Payroll Accountant Rosa Casas has been recognized in the Controller’s Area as the May 2011 winner of UTSA Roadrunner Kudos. Rosa’s contributions on Payroll’s Retiree ACH Debit Service Project helped provide a fast and easy way for retirees to pay for their insurance premiums with a direct debit from their checking or savings account. 

As part of the development team, Rosa suggested modifications and development to validate our ACH files prior to sending them for bank debits.  As a result of her gained experience in the development and testing phases, Rosa ascended to become the administrator of Payroll’s Retiree ACH Debit Service Application. 

The application’s first distribution to financial institutions returned no errors, proof of Rosa’s detailed efforts on the project. Rosa continues to improve the application as well as advertise its benefits to our retirees.  As a result, Payroll’s Retiree ACH Debit Service Application has seen enrollment increase, as 48% of our eligible retirees have enrolled in the program. Kudos Rosa, and thank you for helping to make success happen.

Linda Martinez, ASO II was recognized for the assistance she provides to the Controller's area, including Grants and Contracts Financial Services (GCFS), Accounting Services and Disbursements and Travel Services (DTS).

Linda plans various meetings and presentations, most recently, the end of year workshops and the space survey training session. Her reliability and attention to detail allows presenters to focus on their topics.

Linda is always willing to provide technical assistance in the preparation of presentations, charts, graphs and other materials – a trait much appreciated by those of us who are computer challenged and to whom the memory stick is a mystery!

In addition, her positive attitude is a plus.

Linda also assists with the recruitment of staff in all areas of the Controller's division. For example, she has prepared requisitions, developed Monster.com ads, setup interviews, prepared interview packets, managed the STARS system and assisted with HRMS documents, which allows management and their staff to spend time on other priorities.

Congratulations Linda!

Cynthia Schweers, Senior Accountant is the recipient of the November Roadrunner Kudos. Cynthia is responsible for setting up the Investment in Plant accounts at the budget group level and recording the activity at the general ledger account level. She has assigned account numbers to each asset on the S-11 schedules (Capital Asset Schedules) based on the account number structure developed for the Investment in Plant Fund group. Once assigned, she created 121 budget groups in DEFINE for the account numbers. Cynthia also clarified Investment in Plant activity at both the general ledger account level and the subsidiary account level. She created Excel templates for the balance forwards, asset additions, construction in progress transfers and depreciation and uploaded the templates into DEFINE to create journal entries. After all the activity was recorded, she reconciled the accounts back to the S-11 schedules. Cynthia's important work with the Investment in Plant Fund activity allows efficient access for COGNOS reporting, as well as automated scheduling for the AFR. This will also assist in mapping the capital assets from DEFINE to PeopleSoft.

Cynthia has trained several financial affairs staff members on various accounting processes, journal entries and DEFINE. She is consistently available to answer any questions from team members.

Congratulations, Cynthia, on your November Roadrunner Kudos, and thank you for your continued support and dedication to the Controller's Office!

Ana Longoria, Director of Accounting Services, presented Justin Avants with the Roadrunner Kudos Award for the 3rd Quarter. Over the last three months, Justin has taken on additional duties from both the Capital/Special Projects Accountant’s position in the Controller’s Office and the vacant Accountant II position in Accounting, in addition to his regular job duties. Justin is a quick study and coupled with his experience and positive attitude he was able to assist with these duties without either department loosing productivity. He worked with the Facilities staff on the project cost estimates, transfer requests and institutional project closeouts. Justin also is providing training to other staff members.

During this time period, Justin received two emails from departments expressing their appreciation for the way he has assisted them. According to one department, he is “consistently courteous, accurate, and prompt in handling everything and true asset to your team”.

Justin, congratulations and thank you for your positive attitude, support during staff transition and dedication to the Controller’s Office!

Lisa Cartier (pictured on the left) presented Dorothy Cheatham with the April 2010 Roadrunner Kudos Award. Dorothy was hired at UTSA on July 16, 1984 in the accounting department (now called DTS) and recently received her 26-year employment pin. Dorothy has worked for eleven different managers and has been able to adapt to all of the changes that have evolved in the DTS department. She has remained true to the department throughout her years and continues to be open to change and improvements. She has persevered through various management styles, process and procedures and remained positive and optimistic through it all.

Dorothy distinctly remembers a particular experience where she assisted the registration department with the student registration process. Due to this manual process, the students’ class load, the volume of students and the sheer processing time required for each student, she worked long hours to ensure that each student was registered for classes prior to the employees leaving for the day.

During her evaluation, she mentioned that the current state of the department was the best she had seen in all of her 26 years at UTSA and is very excited to be apart of the new progress that the university is embarking. This kind of dedication and determination to one department and organization is truly hard to find. And for this reason, Dorothy Cheatham truly deserves the Rowdy Kudos Award.

How many of you balance your checkbook? How difficult is it? Can you imagine doing this for the University? Priscilla does this every month and she is expected to balance to the penny. Before the accounting records can be closed for the month or year the bank accounts must be reconciled. The reconciliation is complex and Pricilla has to reconcile each component of cash to include credit cards receipts, electronic checks (e-checks), cash, ACHs and wire transfers. At year end, she has only two days to complete the reconciliation which consisted of deposits totaling $157 million dollars and close to 1500 transactions. Over the years she has tried to make the process more efficient.

Priscilla takes pride in her work and when something does not look correct she goes the extra step to analyze data further. She discovered an error and brought it to the attention of the Director so that it could be corrected before yearend.

She also assists departments with questions they may have regarding their statement of account. If she does not know the answer, she will research and find the answer and call the department back rather than passing them on to someone else. Congratulations Priscilla!

Although we seldom realize how much work is entailed in managing the University’s Accounting Office on a daily basis, during this last fiscal year Ana has also had to manage and assist in six audits (five state and one UT System), the most she has seen in one year, since her years with the University.

I have had the opportunity to observe Ana on various occasions, and despite her full load, she is always willing to take the time to assist those who approach her with questions. She takes the time to explain and/or clarify a process to ensure the information is conveyed correctly and/or entry is recorded properly in an effort to help minimize the possibility of errors at year-end or during an audit. Although all the reports have not been received, the audit results for four of the six audits have been good.

Ana’s commitment to Financial Affairs, building a solid Accounting Office team by providing the required leadership, including to those who seek her assistance outside her office has made this process appear transparent to those not involved in the daily operations are just a few reasons why she is deserving of this award.

On behalf of the Controller’s management staff, we would like to thank Ana for her hard work and dedication.

Great job Ana!