STAFF SENATE MEETING SUMMARY - March 13, 2006

INSTRUCTIONAL BUILDING Room 102 on the HealthScienceCenter Campus

Call to Order

Noting a quorum, Chair Forman called the meeting to order at 2:35 P.M.

He welcomedSenators to the main campus!!

Approval of Meeting Minutes

No minutes to review this month - We’ll catch up next month. For those who do not know, Robin is on extended family leave with her father who is ill in California. She hopes to be back soon and she is staying in touch with the officers.

Report of the Staff Senate Chair, Bill Forman

  • Library Extension Grand Opening – Chair Forman attended the grand opening and suggested that Senators go see the new area and have the robot pick up a book for you. In 1 minute, the robot brings it back from a listing of over 1.2 million volumes!! The new Elaine Chao auditorium will be the new location for the Staff Senate meetings. Nice comfortable and bright. No more dungeon…
  • Search Committees –
  • AVPHR – Chair Forman is on the committee, along with two other senators, and they are working and will seek input from advisory committees (same format as when we selected Julien) – we have had 104 applicants on line as of this morning. The search committee is serving in the capacity of a search firm.
  • DeanMedicalSchool – Chair Forman is on this search committee as well.
  • Vice President of Research – Senator Libby White will be serving on this search committee
  • Dental Dean – Dr. Staat is on the committee which has met, taken votes, submitted names and waiting for approval.
  • President’s Planning and Budget Committee – The Provost set up the committee which has 6 Staff Senators on it. Dr. Bill Pierce (Faculty Senate Chair) is the Chair and the group is providing input throughout the budget process. This is an ongoing committee which will work year round.
  • Senators may have seen the article in the Courier Journal discussing the Student Athletic Fee and the confusion as to whether or not it was to be continued at $50 a semester. The Board of Trustees met the same day and reviewed the issue. It is in the contractual agreement with Vice President of Athletics, Tom Jurich. If he stays through the term of his contract (til 2016) – the fee will continue throughout that time. That was passed by the Trustees and the Board is reviewing the contract now. The sunset clause mentioned in the paper was overridden by the Board of Trustee’s agreement with Vice President Jurich
  • EAP Committee Meeting – typically the EPA committee gets usage statistics and information from the provider on a quarterly basis…what are the big problems and issues…number of faculty and staff using the services, etc. The providerbelieves that U of L needs amandatory supervisory training program. That is being investigated and pursued. For instance, what are the benchmarks doing? How do we sell it? A recommendation will be brought to the administration from the EAP Committee after seeking the support of constituency groups.

Question -
Is it true that sexual harassment prevention training not tied to raises any more? A unit can choose to make it a facet of salary, but it will no longer be listed in the budget guidelines. Penalties may vary from unit to unit.

Report of the Faculty Senate Representative, Dr. Robert Staat

Faculty Senate met in Chao auditorium – Hannalore has been asked to design airplanes because there is so much room between you and the seats in front of where you are seated.

  • The meeting opened with a memorial to Dr. Bill Daken – Department of Geography and Geosciences – he was best known for his work on the political redistricting of metro Louisville, making sure of equal representation for all residents.
  • The Senate approved a slight modification to the mission statement adding a commitment to the liberal arts and sciences. This is in response to strengthening our SACS document and enhancing our position regarding U of L’s Phi Beta Kappa application.
  • Provost Willihnganz made her report
  • Vice President for Student Affairs search is underway – She sees this role as the hub of student activity with spokes radiating out to all units so there will be more unit based decisions instead of everything being centrally based.
  • There will be moderate growth at the undergrad level. We will increase quality as opposed to only quantity.
  • President Ramsey reported on the budget.
  • Bloody Sunday (Ky. Legislature)– the results were worse than we anticipated. It is being studied and worked over and will be going to the Senate. $20 million increase for all higher education which means only $3.6 million for U of L.
  • State highway money is being set aside for road improvements at Shelby Campus.
  • Federal grants to improve interstate 65 for better access to the Belknap campus. May be after the bridges are painted – at least 3 years away.
  • Undergraduate Tuition – UK’s tuition increase is 12% and U if L is looking at between 13% and 15.4% with a 6.5% non resident (only 10% are non residents) Non resident tuition has to be 2.5 times resident tuition by statute. Negotiations continue on medical and dental tuitions. It has been suggested that professional schools could charge a lower rate but any shortfall less than the 13% budgeted rate (or whatever the final rate is)would have to be made up elsewhere.
  • Dr. Ramsey finished with the “A” word – the Arena issue. U of L did not start the discussion as far as the arena goes – we are under contract at FreedomHall – if they want to build an arena we will play as long as it is best for the City. If it is a money issue – let’s save a lot of money at put it on campus or possibly at the Fairgrounds.

Report of the Student Government Representative, Sowmya Srinivasan

Sowmya is on Spring Break

Report of Standing Committees

Credentials & Nominations – Valerie Browning

Libby White will be the Staff Senator on the Vice President for Research Search Committee

We need volunteers to serve on the committees for:

VP Advancement Search

VP Student Affairs Search

Several people expressed interest from the floor

Announcements will be coming on the listserv

Executive Committee – Bill Forman

The committee met and the topic was the budget – we walked through the most recent revisions. It seems that the Council for Postsecondary Education (CPE) recognizes that U ofL is under-funded with respect to our benchmark institutions. We took on the issue of tuition. Dr. Ramsey wanted a discussion and recommendation from Staff Senate. The Tuition-setting Committee, made up of faculty and students, had studied that issue alone for over the past three or four months and recommended a resident tuition increase of 13% with lesser percentage increases for non residents. The CPE is mandated to set tuition for all state universities – they turned it over to the universities which raised tuition from between 9.75% - 23% last year. This year the CPE has set up a formula. Each university is given a max amount of increase based on funding from the state. We can raise tuition up to 15.4% under their formula. Not decided yet.

Salary – Staff Senate will also give feedback to the president on salary increase. Bev looked at the urban consumer price index (rate of inflation) and hasthat information for the Executive Committee to formulate a place to start a salary recommendation. How will the salary increase come? We will give a recommendation on that again as well but President Ramsey, at a dinner with the Executive Committee, said he likes the idea of tying increases to merit.

A Senator asked if the CPE tied together fees and tuition for all the schools now? They have tied them together. Our tuition costlooks higher than UK’s but they hide a lot in fees.

Another Senator asked why do we go into this process in July or August but we never gain any ground. Chair Forman said that the CPE recommends money that higher education needs…but governor and legislature are not funding at the level that is necessary to receive higher salary increases or have lower tuition increases.

Finance & Economic Welfare – Martyna Warren

Met last month without a quorum about the Executive Committee’s budget meeting.

They are scheduled to meet Wednesday afternoon.

Plans & Policies – Beverly Daly

Met last month without a quorum. Brian Buford talked about the employee coaching plan. It is not something that can be done quickly. IT and the College of Business are using different survey instruments. HR is looking at the different forms and surveying everyone involved for satisfaction. Part of the survey instrument depends on type of work different departments do. IT does a lot of team work. Other units may do other things of a highly repetitive nature.

March 21 3:00 PMis the next meeting. The group is reviewing the HR Strategic Plan – Bev will send link out to Senators who may wish to review it as well.

Services & Facilities – Angela Lewis-Klein

No report, the committee did not meet.

Staff Grievance – Marsha Shields

No report, the committee did not meet.

Staff Policy Review – Bridget Burke

No report, the committee did not meet. They are scheduledto meet March 23.

Report of University-Wide Committees

Dining Services – Tulip Tree opening in the Library –SOON!

Look for reports on Docushare.

Report of the Vice President for Business Affairs, Larry Owsley

Mr. Owsley cannot be here today, something came up at the last minute – Any Questions?

Several senators had questions about HSC parking and buildings:

  • Update on the Parking on HSC with Dental School Parking lot?
  • Is staff parking going to decrease in the garage?
  • Can we encourage him to keep staff parking in the Garage?
  • Carmichael Parking Lot – almost 2000 students going to lose parking...what is going to happen there?
  • What is happening with the CarmichaelBuilding?
  • University rents space in Jewish Parking garage…but those parking stickers cannot be used at Belknap – For $10 a year, U of L employees who have spaces at the Jewish Hospital Parking lot can purchase something to park on Belknap. What can be done to rectify this…people are paying for a permit, but cannot use it at Belknap?

Report of the Acting Associate Vice President for Human Resources, John Ralston

  • Upgrade of Peoplesoft – most of the HR processes will be the same but there are major changes in the recruitment portion. Employees and applicants will no longer have to start from scratch each time they want to apply for a job. It is much more appealing and professional looking. Training classes will be held but dates have not been set yet. Financials are almost identical –
  • Compensation Analysis Survey is underway! Implementation will take place over the next 8 – 9 weeks. Software will be able to do compensation analysis based on Market, our pay line and up to the minute data. Gap analysis will be easier.
  • The Employment Services Manager position is open again. If you know any good candidates, please get them to apply

Questions?

  • Will there be an on-line application form?The entire recruitment process has been overhauled. It is more professional and Departments will be able to see who applies right away – someone asked if that meant there would be no screening in HR? Job postings will be linked to the HR home page. All Faculty Staff applicants will be through a new site.
  • Is the HRAC still meeting and what are they doing with the Grievance policy? HRAC meets monthly.Charlotte is trying to make sure that everything is caught up and the Grievance Policy needs to be reviewed.
  • RIF Candidate – two different departments want to separate from employees. Please send particulars to John so he can look into the issue.
  • Is the new Compensation analysis software going to take into account any compression issues? New hires get hired making as much or more in the same grade levels as employees who have been here for years. Compensation software will help identify where it is a problem, but then it will have to be addressed. More of a wholesale gap analysis where the market is compared to the university. PWC filled out a questionnaire. HR will be able to do a data transfer and compare with relevant salary surveys. HR will be able to do detailed analyses. Can get down to individual-level detail. If your position information questionnaire needs to be updated, get that done and get it in to HR. Maybe not enough to warrant a reclassification – but changes to PIQ should be reflected.
  • Can PIQ’s be tampered with without your knowledge? Is that appropriate? Supervisors review what the employee has completed but they should sit down together and agree on a PIQ. Supervisor has a Supervisor page to make changes on, but should not change the PIQ without the knowledge and consent of the employee.

Other Business

There was no other business.

Adjournment

Noting no further business, Chair Forman asked for a motion to adjourn the meeting. The motion was unanimously approved and the meeting adjourned at 3:40 P.M.

Staff Senate Officers for 2004-05

Chair – Bill Forman 852-0996

Vice Chair – Bev Daly 852-8360

Sec/Treas. – Brent Fryrear 852-2956

Senate Office - Robin Emond-Durham – 852-6713

Web:

Staff Senate Collection on Docushare: