Procurement Services
Accounts Payable (AP)
Starting in summer 2023, AP started researching, auditing, and analyzing data related to Protected Health Information (PHI) on supplier invoice images. On April 30, 2024, the AP team will be rolling out a new process which will create an additional layer of security around PHI while not hindering any functionality for departments. Check out this newsletter article to learn more about the coming changes.
Purchasing
Several Purchasing staff were recently promoted to Category Manager or Category Associate positions. Category Manager and Associate roles both act as experts on their assigned commodities. Category Associates have signatory/approval authority on orders and contracts up to $50,000. If an order or agreement exceeds $50,000, it is reviewed by a Category Manager.
- Rachel Beall was promoted to Category Manager, IT
- Jamie Inman was promoted to Category Manager, Professional Services (PRO)
- Daniel Heidenreich was promoted to Category Associate, Maintenance, Repair, & Operations (MRO)
- Ashley Gagle was promoted to Category Associate, Professional Services (PRO)
- James Nissen was promoted to Category Associate, IT
- Morgan Love was promoted to Category Associate, Scientific (SCI)
Karen Heathcoat retired from IU on February 29, 2024. She started working in Purchasing in December 2013 as a member of the Scientific team, then moved to the Professional Services team. Karen supported orders in the following commodity areas: transcription, translation, interpretation, medical services, ambulance services and amendments. She is looking forward to traveling with her husband, Terry, and spending time with her family.
Debbie Hull is retiring from the university on March 29. She has been a Purchasing staff member since 1981 - over 42 years! During her time in Purchasing, she has worked with countless colleagues across nearly all commodities, from food to furniture and everything in between.
Over the last 17 years she has held the role of Institutional Purchasing Representative for maintenance, repair, and operations, and is a familiar face, or voice, to many across the university. She is looking forward to spending more time at home with her family and not commuting to Bloomington every day. Congratulations Debbie! You will be missed!
Supplier Data Management (SDM)
In October 2023, Supplier Data Management (SDM) implemented a secondary review for Supplier Edit Request forms. The updated process requires each Supplier Edit Request form to be reviewed by two SDM staff before action is taken on a request.
Two layers of review help ensure all SDM procedures and BUY.IU functionalities are considered prior to supplier profile updates. Thanks to form efficiencies and employee training, the team has maintained a 2 business day or less turnaround time even with this extra review step.
Office of the Treasurer
Insurance, Loss Control, and Claims (INLOCC)
Below are some highlights of INLOCC’s 2023 accomplishments.
- 48 Fire Pumps Tested
- 158 Real Estate Inspections
- 42 Greek House Inspections
- 902 Building Inspections
- 150,000+ Monthly Inspections of Fire Extinguishers, Valves, AEDs, and Emergency Lights
- 208 Hydrant Tests
- 378 Hot Work Permits Issued
- 354 Individuals trained in First Aid/CPR/AED
- 37 Individuals trained in Lab Fire Safety
Curious to learn more about what INLOCC’s responsibilities? Check out the short INLOCC New Employee Video, created by Alex Mahurin, below.
University Bursar
University Bursar continues to work with Nelnet, a student loan servicer, as an alpha client for the new Sponsor Billing & Payment portal. The team is working on expanding the functionality beyond the minimal viable product and creating new invoice templates and enhancements.
All University Bursar staff members completed the annual review of process guides and function lists to ensure their documentation is accurate and up to date. University Bursar recently started a new Lean Continuous Improvement review of the tuition appeal process.
Office of the Controller (UCO)
After 28 years of service to IU and the Office of the University Controller, Ron Reuter has officially retired. Throughout his career, Ron maintained UCO’s IT infrastructure, ensured network security, supported enterprise applications and specialized software, and provided top notch customer service to staff. Ron is widely respected by his peers throughout the university, which include staff from UITS, Internal Audit, and the nearly 15 departments he has supported within University Administration. We are overwhelmingly grateful to Ron for his dedication and hard work over the years, and though we’ll miss him terribly, we’re excited to see him off on his next adventure. Congratulations, Ron!
External Financial Reporting
Please join us in congratulating Sadie Schmidt on her promotion from Senior Accountant to Principal Accountant on the External Financial Reporting team. Sadie previously worked with the Cash Accounting team in UCO before joining External Financial Reporting. Sadie is a CPA and earned both her undergraduate and graduate (M.S. in Accounting) degrees from the IU Kelley School of Business. Congratulations, Sadie, on a well-deserved promotion!
UCO would like to welcome Corbin Neu to the team! Corbin joined IU as a Principal Accountant within the External Financial Reporting team in December. As a member of External Financial Reporting, Corbin is responsible for analyzing financial statement transactions and variances and developing reporting to aid in monitoring the accuracy of the university’s financial statement activity. He serves as a point of contact for the annual year-end audit related to significant transactions and account fluctuations and provides supporting documentation to the external auditors. Corbin will support and participate in the university’s external audit of the annual financial statements, ad hoc financial reporting projects, as well as internal controls projects that are part of the Office of the University Controller’s strategic initiatives.
Corbin is a graduate of the University of Evansville Schroeder School of Business, where he holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting. Corbin is also a licensed CPA. He has experience in public accounting, at Crowe, with an emphasis on tax. More recently, he worked as a senior accountant at Assembly Health in Chicago where he was responsible for variance analysis, financial reporting, consolidations, and ERP enhancements.
In addition to his professional background, Corbin enjoys spending time with his wife, Lynnette, and their Australian Cattle Dog, Tilly. He is a lifelong supporter of IU athletics, especially men’s and women’s basketball, and is an avid reader and writer.
University Tax Services
Tax is excited to welcome Dulce Ruiz to the team. She started as our new tax specialist on February 26, 2024. As a member of the Tax team, she will have a variety of responsibilities with a focus on the international side of tax. Her responsibilities range from Form 1042 preparation to helping with the preparation of our Form 990-T.
Dulce joined IU in 2016 as an Accounting Specialist in the UITS Finance Office. She comes to us from Purchasing where she worked as a Category Manager. She’s excited to join the UCO family where she feels she will be able to better utilize her education and volunteer experience. She graduated from IU East with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, and also graduated from Ivy Tech with a degree in Accounting. She has volunteered at United Way as a tax preparer for nine years, and finds joy in helping others while learning.
In addition to her education, professional, and volunteer background, she enjoys spending time with her family. Since her family schedule can be busy with four kids, she enjoys going on walks, working out, and any other relaxing activity as a family.
The Lunchroom
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Mark your calendars! On Wednesday, May 22, your Lunch & Learn committee colleagues have scheduled a behind-the-scenes tour of Memorial Stadium, IU Bloomington’s 50,000+ seat football stadium. In the coming months, we will send out an invitation to the division along with a registration link, as spots on the tour will be limited. Be sure to save the date and keep an eye on your inbox! Note that we will not have the opportunity to eat lunch during this Lunch & Learn.
Lunch & Learn is a series of educational presentations designed by your EVPFA colleagues to uphold the spirit of continuous improvement in the Finance & Administration division. From historical tours of IU campus to quick Microsoft Excel seminars, Lunch & Learns sustain the pursuit of personal enrichment and celebrate the wealth of knowledge found throughout the university.
Performance at IU
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Last year, IUHR launched the Performance at IU initiative. EVPFA’s participation in the initial rollout of the program was nearly universal. We would greatly appreciate your continued support as we seek to build on that momentum by providing a consistent, collaborative, and ongoing process to help our appointed staff achieve their full potential.
2023 Annual Performance Conversations between supervisors and their appointed staff must be completed by March 31, with attestations from supervisors submitted by April 15. Additionally, 2024 Expectation Conversations need to be completed by April 30, with attestations from employees submitted by May 15.
The windows for these two conversations overlap, so participants can combine the two conversations into one meeting in March if they wish. If you do, be sure to submit each separate attestation by the deadlines stated above.
Kudos, Service Milestones, & Celebrations
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Celebrating the amazing accomplishments, both professional and personal, of our EVPFA colleagues!
Kudos
Congratulations to IUPD Detective Sarah McKalips, the 2024 recipient of the Digital Forensics Scholarship for Women in Law Enforcement from the International Association of Computer Investigative Specialists. Sarah is a forensic examiner who serves the Indianapolis campus and leads the Digital Forensic Unit’s internship program.
Huge shout-out to our UCO Tax, Payroll, and Customer Service teams. These teams were instrumental in getting around 180,000 tax forms filed for tax year 2023 (including W-2s, 1098-Ts, 1099s, and 1042-Ss). They will continue to help address the thousands of questions UCO receives in relation to these tax forms throughout this year. You are all so appreciated!
UCO would like to thank all the staff within the EVPFA division that assisted with the completion of the annual financial statement and single audits. Both audits associated with fiscal year 2023 are complete. We could not do it without the collective efforts of staff both within and outside of UCO. Thank you again!
Kudos to Valerie Pritchett and Amanda Thoman, both with University Bursar, for their work on updating process guides to ensure documentation is accurate and processes are efficient.
Thanks to Connie Strange, University Bursar, for standardizing the response text for the Bursar Tuition Appeal process – this has made life so much easier!
A HUGE thank you to Adrian Campbell, UCO, for her work on remediating ten years’ worth of Annual Financial Report PDFs so they comply with accessibility requirements. It’s a tedious process that you were given at the last minute. Your dedication to doing the right thing is noticed and appreciated 💙
Kudos to Pam Ayres, Justin Jerles, and Amanda Lefaure, all within University Bursar, for taking on additional responsibilities and rolling with the punches that come with learning new tasks.
Kudos to Ireli Babbs, UCO! There has been a lot of change/conversion/troubleshooting with new systems. She has so much on her plate yet makes sure her employees are doing ok and are not overwhelmed. She makes work enjoyable and keeps the wheels turning and motivates us all. We would be lost without her.
Kudos to the Non-Student Accounts Receivable (NSAR) team, Danielle Todd, Kari Deckard, and Amy Chen, for quickly reviewing and updating various Accounts Receivable training documents on the website to comply with the DSI initiative for the Training team.
Angus Burke, Training, collaborated with Supplier Data Management on the new Supplier Edit Request Form in BUY.IU, coordinating the testing process and building communications to university audiences in preparation for its launch in April 2024. He presented at his first Campus Administrative Training Series meeting in Bloomington on February 14. Congratulations, Angus, on your first presentation! You did a fantastic job.
Inspector Amanda Owens, INLOCC, obtained her Fire Investigator I Certification in November 2023. Nice work!
Inspector Linda Braunlin, INLOCC, obtained her Fire Inspector II Certification in November 2023. Awesome job, Linda.
Kudos to Joey Griffin. During his time with SDM he has consistently shown a tremendous aptitude with his work, a desire to help his team, learn new skills, and push SDM’s projects over the finish line. Thanks, Joey! Keep up the great work.
Kudos to Kaelie Dobson, Jordan Dalton, and Aaron Hawes, all from AP, for their work on reviewing supplier statements. Thanks to their proactive efforts, they have recovered approximately $40,000 in refunds for IU departments since October!
Luc Sinex, UITS supporting Training, has done an amazing job managing the remediation of five websites. This has consisted of HTML code fixes, recreation of content, building new tools, and much more. Thank you, Luc, for researching how to implement the necessary changes and improving the web experience for all our users!
Hip hip hooray to our Purchasing Business Analysts, Amanda Coats and Alan Haupert! In the short time they have been in their roles they have taken on some major reporting projects that were very time-consuming, and maybe even a bit challenging, and have done a fantastic job with them! Thank you for diving in!
The Purchasing Helpdesk Consultants recently completed a lengthy project reviewing commonly asked questions sent to our helpdesk and building standardized responses for those, creating efficiency and consistent responses to our customers. Thank you, Misty Millis and Blake Brown, for improving our customers’ experiences!
Service Milestones
Congratulations to the Finance & Administration staff celebrating a service milestone this quarter! Be sure to congratulate them the next time you see them 😄
| Staff Member | Department | Years of Service |
| David Newsom | Treasury | 40 |
| Diane Sweeney | IU Police Department | 35 |
| Veronica Hites | Finance Shared Services | 25 |
| Christie LeMaster | Office of the University Controller | 20 |
| James Van Der Mark | Travel Management Services | 15 |
| Tracey Mui | Office of the University Controller | 15 |
| Patrick Jobe | IU Police Department | 15 |
| Jeffrey Riley | IU Police Department | 15 |
| Kenneth Allen | IU Police Department | 15 |
| Kari Deckard | Office of the University Controller | 10 |
| Laura Hudson | Budget Office | 5 |
| Rebecca Keough | IU Public Safety | 5 |
| Shelby Young | Environmental Health & Safety | 5 |
Celebrations
Alan Haupert, Purchasing, completed his first full marathon (26.2 miles) in Indianapolis back in October! Congratulations, Alan!
Meet the new additions to your colleagues' families in the photos below!
