Draft Minutes
via
audio conference
Audio bridge # 866-339-5580, pin
*1622936*
Fairbanks site : 212A Butrovich Building
1. Call to
Order and Roll Call
Members present:
Lisa Sporleder, Chair; President, Statewide
Administration Assembly
Rita Fuller, President, UAS Staff
Council
Mel Kalkowski, Vice Chair;
President, UAA APT Council
Maya Salganek, President-elect, UAF
Staff Council
Kimberly Stanford, President, UAA
Classified Council
Others present:
Pat Ivey, System
Governance
Earlina Bowden, Director, Campus Diversity and Compliance, UAF
Mike Humphrey, Director, Benefits,
Statewide
Pete Kelly, Director, Government
Relations
Bob Kizer, UAA APT Council
Jenifer Sandonato, UAS Staff
Council,
Jana Ring, UAS Staff Council,
Gary Newman, UAF
2. Adopt Agenda
MOTION: passed
“The Staff Alliance moves to adopt the agenda for
the
3. Approve
http://gov.alaska.edu/Staff/minutes/2005/2005-02-08.html
http://gov.alaska.edu/Staff/minutes/2005/2005-02-08.pdf
MOTION: passed
“The Staff Alliance moves to approve the minutes
for the
Newman later advised that the
minutes did not reflect what he said. He
was asked to rewrite the section
where he spoke and send the revision to Pat Ivey.
4 Chair’s report - Lisa
Sporleder
Sporleder reviewed the agenda.
5. Public
Comments
There were no public comments.
6. Staff Governance Reports - SW, UAS, UAA, UAF
http://www.uaa.alaska.edu/governance/classified/
http://www.uaa.alaska.edu/governance/apt/
http://www.uaf.edu/uafgov/staff/index.html
http://www.uas.alaska.edu/staffcouncil/
Lisa Sporleder reported that Statewide
Administration Assembly met on February 9 and had a wrap-up from the Love Inc
family project, complete with pictures of the family unwrapping their Christmas
presents. SAA is working right now on
elections and have now closed nominations. Nominations for outstanding employee
awards closed yesterday and SAA is waiting for Make Students Count
nominations. SAA is backing the local
Walk
Rita Fuller reported that the UAS Staff Council
had its meeting February 19. Tom Dienst,
the UAS HR director spoke about the grievance process and staff performance
evaluations. Sporleder and Ivey attended
as well from the
Kim Stanford reported that UAA Chancellor Maimon
announced appointment of two new vice chancellors: a vice chancellor for
community partnerships who is long- time employee Rene Carter-Chapman, and a
vice chancellor for student affairs, Linda Lazzell, who was dean of
students. The UAA Classified Council had
a chili feed March 2, and the chancellor and vice chancellors stopped by. Don Evans, the UAA staff development day coordinator
attended the last UAA Classified Council meeting seeking suggestions. The Council is seeking nominations for 12
seats up for election in May. APT
Council also met with Don Evans regarding the staff development day and Linda
Lazzell regarding student affairs issues.
Governance coordinator Leah McWhorter has left the university and
governance leaders are currently trying to decide whether that position will be
refilled or Anissa Hauser will be the only governance staff person at UAA.
UAF Staff Council met on Friday and had a campus
tour since last Staff Alliance meeting. Issues under discussion include the
PERS/TRS bills, and the common start date and the potential impacts on
staff. The Council is working on on-line
elections, looking at dependent healthcare issue, getting word out on the UAF
Staff Appreciation Day May 16, and will be having a retreat on Thursday
facilitated by the leadership development office of UAF Student Services.
7. Governance Regulation - Proposed Admin/BOR
Revisions
Stanford
had not read the revisions.
MOTION:
“The Staff Alliance moves to table
the governance regulations until next Staff
8. My UA Portal Update
Mel Kalkowski read a
report from Tom Moyer recommending postponement of the roll out of the pilot
project until late March after spring break.
9. Employee
Relations
9.1 Mediation Project and Supervisory Training
Earlina
Bowden said when she took over in 2001, she looked at regulations on grievances
and mediation and saw that the regulations called for advisors. She decided to spearhead training for
advisors and mediators. With over 4000
employees at UAF, the people trained to handle complaints are quickly
overwhelmed with them. Last year, Bowden
developed a training program and brought someone up from Outside to do the
training. UAS Human Resources people
came up, and over 15 mediators were trained.
Bowden is working with the university general counsel to finalize
documents mediators can use. At UAF,
there are 19 advisors trained to handle formal complaints. Five of the advisors are also mediators. Mediators
received two full days of training.
Bowden is
not aware of any training going on at any of the other campuses. As soon as the mediator documents are
finalized, Bowden will be marketing the trained UAF advisors and mediators out
to the other campuses. She hasn’t used
the new advisors and mediators yet but will soon. Since December, UAF has had over ten
complaints that could have gone to mediation had the process been ready. Bowden needs to get more buy-in from all the
parties, including deans, directors and unions. Complaint files and mediation
files are never put in the employee’s personnel file. Personnel action, i.e., movement to another
position as a result of mediation, may be placed in the person’s personnel
file.
The
complaint file will be kept in the initiating department or in the HR
office. Kalkowski said that means that
all these files are discoverable, meaning the university would have to furnish
the information in court cases. Bowden
replied that discovery is based on need to know. Kalkowski read the law that states that
anyone can look at anyone’s personnel file or mediation files; that files are
discoverable at a very low level. He
asked that people be notified that this is the case. The UAF mediation program is not on the web
yet pending finalizing procedures but will be as soon as everything is
finalized. Bowden is working with legal
counsel so that everyone understands whether or not mediation stops the
grievance clock. Mediation is only used
under the complaint regulations that have no timeline, whereas grievance
regulations do have timelines. There are also different persons involved under
grievance than under mediation. This has
to be clarified in regulation. General Counsel
is, at this point, very flexible and sees this as a way to reduce the number of
formal complaints.
Mediation is
very good for resolving communications problems between employees and
supervisors involving misunderstandings between the parties.
Generally,
in extremely hostile work environments, mediation will most likely not work,
and the formal complaint and grievance procedure will be necessary.
The
mediation training packet Bowden is developing is based on federal EEOC
mediation procedures.
9.2 Verification
of Student Status for Health Care Coverage
of University Employee
Dependents
http://gov.alaska.edu/staff/2005-02-08.dependent-verification.html
Gary
Newman indicated that of 350 people in this situation, ten percent are having
problems with the process.
MOTION: passed
without objection
“The
Staff Alliance requests the
Humphrey
explained that knowing the university’s budget crunch regarding health care
benefits and the fact that students process in and out of school, the
university has asked Premera to look at this.
The form will be up on the HR website soon which should ameliorate the
problem. The form is not web-enterable
at present time but Humphrey is requesting it to be set up for on line
entry. The form presently can be filled
out on-line and printed, but still has to be taken to admissions.
There
are multiple points of notification. The HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability
and Accountability Act) form is generated by Blue Cross and sent to the
parents. Rita Fuller said her son was
covered by Fuller’s insurance while a full-time student, and when he quit, it
took her two semesters to get him off as her dependent. Humphrey said it was the responsibility of
the campus HR office to input that information into Banner.
Newman
said there are two different issues. The
two-part form is a convoluted process.
One part has to go to HR, the other to admissions. Both have to be
forwarded to Premera Blue Cross. There
needs to be one process; first to get verification from admissions that the
student is full time and then verification from HR that the student is a
dependent of an employee and then send it to Premera. Right now, forms have to be faxed instead of
emailed.
8.3 Employee communications
Jim Johnsen and Kate
Ripley have been meeting to outline the job duties of an employee
communications person. They have
received a job description from another university to use as a template. They intend to move forward with this fairly
quickly.
8.4 Department
of Labor Audit
The Department of Labor audit is still ongoing,
and there have been some changes as a result.
Hopefully, in a month the audit will be done and Jeannine Senechal can
give a report.
9. Advocacy
9.1 Make
Students Count Awards update
No nominations have been
received at UAS but last year seven nominations were received in the last week.
One nomination is expected at Statewide. UAF has some date problems that will
be resolved. At UAA, applications go directly to the UAA governance
office.
9.2 PERS-TRS
Deficit
Mike Humphrey reported
that the PERS/TRS debt is $5.6 billion dollars from a combination of escalating
health care costs, gross underpayment by PERS/TRS employers, and bad investment
returns.. The bills introduced by
Representative Mike Kelly are designed to offset this, and, combined with a
five percent increase per year to the employer contribution, will only begin to
take care of the deficit by 2025.
Humphrey sat in on the PERS board deliberations. Regarding the bill
revising the makeup of the PERS board, he did not read the changes as
eliminating PERS/TRS employees from sitting on the boards. The Alaska Supreme Court said that no changes
could be made to existing tiers. Only
way to make changes is create a new tier.
This situation needs a
long-term thoughtful solution. The Board
of Regents has not taken an official position.
The university is mostly monitoring the situation and is advocating a
fix. UA government relations director
Pete Kelly said that there probably wouldn’t be much action until the end of
the session when everyone comes to the table to fix the short-term problem.
The proposed Tier IV
includes a change to the defined contribution plan, and the last employer has
to be a PERS or TRS employer.
9.3 Legislative Update
Pete Kelly reported that
the House Finance Committee won’t take up the budget until mid to late
March. Murkowski’s budget included
Amerada Hess money for capital projects.
The operating budget suggested that they would take FY05 windfalls and
use them in the FY06 operating budget.
The budget request is over $3 billion, and the legislature for years has
tried to keep it at $2.5 billion or below.
This legislature hasn’t really shown itself yet.
The lands bill was
proposed by the governor to create a larger block of land to put into the
university land bank by adding 260,000 acres, some controversial, particularly in Southeast. It is having a hard time getting out of
committee. Seven parcels were taken out
of the bill before the bill could go on to the Finance Committee. There will be parcels taken out and put back
in and the university probably won’t know final outcome until very end of
session. The university will fight very
hard to get the Kodiak launch facility put back in because it’s a very big part
of the university’s mission. Citizens
want access for recreation. There is a
legislator who doesn’t want it in, period.
Pete’s recommendation is to fight for the Kodiak launch facility. There is no end to which the university won’t
go to have the parcel for research.
While the university holds the lands, the university does nothing to
restrict access. The Kodiak property
would only be closed during launches.
There was a scenario put
to the UAS Staff Council that we have to put up no trespassing signs and fences
for liability purposes. Pete said that
historically the university has not done that and would write that into the
deed of transfer. Fuller said there is
quite a bit of furor in
The PERS/TRS money was
not voted out of subcommittee but will be dealt with in the full Finance
Committee. The legislature’s duty is to
deal with the funding environment as it develops year to year, and the idea of
funding for two years is probably not going to happen. The five percent increase to the university’s
general fund operating budget is not going to be a problem. Pete Kelly is spending this week in town to
update his website. There is draft
legislation to fix the open access to personnel files, but the legislation
hasn’t been introduced yet.
10. Common
Start Date; Effects on Staff
Problems with the common start date came to UAF Staff
Council. UAF Faculty Senate has objected in a formal motion. The new common start date will be
Salganek recommended that the local staff councils assess
the impact on staff in their own MAUs.
Lisa Sporleder was asked to express these concerns to the
chair of the Faculty Alliance with assistance from Kim Stanford.
11. Agenda
items for Juneau Retreat April 5-6, 2005
Send agenda items to Lisa Sporleder or Pat Ivey
ten days in advance of the meeting. Ivey
said a van would be available and that everyone was staying at the Prospector
Hotel.
12. Comments
There were no additional comments.
13.
Adjourn
The meeting was adjourned at