Staff Spotlight is an occasional series about WSU staff. If you have a suggestion of someone to be featured, please contact intern Jordy Byrd at today1@wsu.edu.
The numbers that Paul Weed crunches affect WSU’s fiscal reputation, as well as hundreds of grad students who receive funding.
Weed is a fiscal specialist who works jointly with the Office of Research and the Office of the Dean of the Graduate School.
“It’s a good mix,” Weed said.
His largest responsibility with research is maintaining expenditure receipts. An inbox on the left-hand side of his desk overflows with the many invoices Weed is responsible for every day.
“Invoices can be for anything from travel expense vouchers to conferences, cab rides, events, computer equipment or meeting related expenses,” he said.
WSU keeps track of its spending very carefully.
“The tracking system is very in-depth,” Weed said. “For example, the purchasing card monthly statements and reports are reviewed by the purchaser, myself and an unaffiliated third party who has signature authority on the accounts.”
His hard work pays off in the end, when audit reports are published.
“Several (eight) years in a row, WSU has had perfect audits,” he said. “This is much better than our counterparts, for example, at the University of Washington.”
Weed’s primary responsibility with the graduate school is the appointment processing of all graduate student assistantships on campus.
“There are approximately 1,500 assistantships per semester,” he said. “I pretty much do nothing but process assistantship forms two weeks before each semester begins and about a month-and-a-half after.”
Depending upon departmental qualifications, Weed determines whether or not a student receives an operating fee waiver or a qualified tuition reduction or a non-resident tuition waiver.
Weed knows what it’s like to be a poor college student. He graduated from Western Washington University last December.
“You get some kind of satisfaction when you help someone who is working their way through college,” he said. “I know that the quicker I process my job, the quicker these students can receive their assistantships and waivers.”
