Draft Minutes
10:00
am –
Audio bridge # 800-519-1987, pin *1622936*
1. Call
to Order and Roll Call
Lisa
Sporleder, Statewide Administration Assembly, Chair
Jeri
Cary, UAS Staff Council, Vice Chair
Lori
Merdes, Statewide Administration Assembly
Bob
Kizer, UAA APT Council
Maya
Salganek, UAF Staff Council
Kimberly
Stanford, UAA Classified Council
Other
Present:
Pat
Ivey, Executive Officer, System Governance
Jodi
Bailey, Administrative Coordinator, System Governance
Debra
Carter, Employee Communications Specialist
Mike
Humphrey, Director of Benefits
2. Adopt Agenda
MOTION: Moved
by Kimberly Stanford, seconded by Maya Salganek, passed without objection.
“The
Staff Alliance moves to adopt the agenda for
3. Approve
http://gov.alaska.edu/Staff/minutes/2005/12-13.html
http://gov.alaska.edu/Staff/minutes/2005/12-13.pdf
MOTION: Moved by Maya Salganek, seconded by Kimberly Stanford, passed without
objection.
“The Staff Alliance
moves to approve the
4. Chair’s report
A
week from Friday, I am going to the special HR Committee meeting of the Board
of Regents that has been called to discuss the new retirement options that will
be available to new university employees effective this July 1. By the end of the meeting today, I need to be
sure of where this body stands on those options. To further my own understanding, I attended a
PERS/TRS retirement seminar at Noel Wien Library last month. When I got there, I found it was sponsored by
AARP, speakers leaned heavily on the side of unionized teachers, and the
seminar was attended by Gary Wilken and Mike Kelly, though only Senator Wilken
spoke. Because of the
In
our past discussions of the new PERS/TRS tiers, we have been repeatedly told
that the medical benefit of the plans is a defined-benefit portion of these
otherwise defined-contribution retirement plans. Throughout the seminar, I kept hearing that
medical was a defined-contribution benefit.
When I was able to ask the question, and was shown the information, I
was able to see that both sides were presenting the facts as they see them, and
the truth is in the middle. The new
tiers’ medical benefits are a hybrid of defined benefit and defined
contribution. The way I see it, the
plans accrue health care dollars as a defined contribution plan, but allow the
retiree to use the accrued health savings account to buy into the state’s
defined-benefit health care plan. There
is no guarantee that there will be enough money accrued to cover buying into
the plan all the years they may need until Medicare kicks in, and I don’t know
exactly what happens when Medicare does begin.
I’m assuming that without enough money to continue to buy into the
state’s plan, the retiree will have no automatic secondary insurance, as
retirees of earlier tiers will.
The
defined-benefit health care portion of the new PERS tier has been the basis for
the university’s insistence on conditioning the UA Pension Plan to selection of
NORP II. I have previously said I
thought it was unfair to force a new employee to choose between a retirement
pension and a retirement health plan.
But it is not that black-and-white.
Once again, we are shrouded in veils of gray. The truth seems to be a new employee must
choose between the option to buy into the state’s retirement health plan as
long as the Health Savings Account lasts on the PERS plan vs. the UA Pension
plan and the option to buy into any other retirement health plan as long as the
Health Savings Account or VEBA lasts under NORP II. The questions that are shrouded in gray for
me are: What kind of health plans will
even exist in July 2016 (the earliest someone could retire from the new PERS
tier with their health benefit intact)?
How much will the state charge Tier 4 retirees each year to buy into its
health plan? How much money can there
possibly be left over after buying into a health plan for however many years is
needed, to cover the medical expenses NOT covered by the plan? Without a crystal ball to answer these and
similar perplexing questions, it is very difficult to support one retirement
option over the other. I need your help
to know what to relay to the Board’s HR Committee next week.
5. Public Comments
No public comments.
6. Employee
Relations
6.1 Jim Johnsen, Vice President, Faculty and
Staff Relations
Jim
Johnsen was unavailable.
6.2 Director of Faculty Staff Development
Recruitment
The recruitment ended before the
6.3 Employee Education Benefits
http://www.alaska.edu/bor/policy/4p/p04-06.html
http://www.alaska.edu/bor/regulation/4r/r04-06.html
http://gov.alaska.edu/council/2005-10-06.employee-dependenttuitionwaiverreportA.pdf
http://gov.alaska.edu/council/2005-10-06.employee-dependenttuitionwaiverreportB.pdf
Staff
6.4 Legislative Update
http://gov.alaska.edu/Hamilton-to-advocates-final-1.pdf
Jeri has been asked by the UAS Chancellor, to mend
relations with Bruce Weyrauch. Bruce is
upset at the tone of the letter that he received from the
6.5 Wellness Project Update
Mike Humphrey is waiting for the demographic report
from Summex which will reflect the outcome of the surveys. The rebates for filling out the survey were shown
on the
6.6 ACAS 2
No
comments.
6.7 NORP II – New Retirement Plan
http://gov.alaska.edu/staff/2005-12-7BOR-AGENDA-ADDENDUM-NORP.pdf
http://www.state.ak.us/drb/news/retirement-system-funding.pdf
Mike
Humphrey commented on the new Tier 4, the state’s defined contribution plan
which will be introduced on
The
University is looking into creating a new optional retirement plan to compete
with the state’s new Tier 4. Their main
goal is to make it more attractive by adding in more incentives to new employees
than the state’s plan.
He
also informed the group that on a national level, Medicare will be “broke”
around 2016, so the retirement age will likely increase. He also stated that Social Security will be
“broke” as well, around 2040.
6.8 Human Resource Council
Maya gave an update of the last meeting she
attended. The Council decided to
implement a two year vesting period on the defined contribution retirement plan.
Lori Merdes volunteered to participate in the
Council meetings on behalf of the
6.9 Retirement Committee
There
will be a Retirement Committee meeting held on
6.10 Other Employee Relations Items
Mike
Humphrey informed the group that Human Resources had sent out bid requests on
numerous healthcare options (health care, pharmacy, etc.) because the
University must rebid every five years.
If the university chooses a different vendor for any of the current
plans, the employee’s will be notified around February and the new plans will
be effective
7. Governance
Regulation
http://gov.alaska.edu/staff/2005-04-21.governancereg-final.html
Kim
gave an update on the last meeting which took place in December. Kim is waiting for information from Larry
Foster and Jim Johnsen on a couple of the proposed changes and the rationale
for them. Craig Dorman gave background
information on one of the proposed changes he had offered. He wanted to change the wording on one
Faculty Alliance issue because the language was too broad.
8. Staff
Governance Reports (SW, UAS, UAA, UAF)
SW
Lisa
informed the group that SAA received 316 lbs. of food products that were
donated to the food bank for the annual canned food drive. She also discussed the Christmas potluck
which was a Mardi Gras theme. The group
also discusses the IT Merger, retirement issues and a member of SAA who is
keeping in contact with Saichi Oba regarding the senior tuition waiver
regulation.
UAS
http://www.uas.alaska.edu/staffcouncil/
Jeri
discussed their last meeting, which was held in December. They discussed the System Governance Council
retreat in
The
UAS Chancellor attended the meeting and asked that the
UAA
http://www.uaa.alaska.edu/governance/classified/
http://www.uaa.alaska.edu/governance/apt/
Classified
Council and the Assembly have not met since the last
Classified
Council held their annual chili feed in December and they also coordinated a
food and clothing drive.
Kim
also stated that UAA is working on creating a strategic plan with the
assistance of Will Jacobs. He has been
assigned from the Provost’s office to head up the effort on a daily basis.
The
Provost search is still underway and hopefully the finalists will be announced
within the next couple of weeks.
Chancellor
Maimon is hosting a meeting this Friday for the Chancellor’s Advisory Council
for Sustainability.
Kim
is attending a Planning Budget Advisory Council meeting this Friday to discuss
strategic planning.
UAF
http://www.uaf.edu/uafgov/staff/index.html
Maya
Salganek discussed their last meeting, which was held on December 16th. The KUAC issue was the main topic of the
meeting. The Council invited KUAC staff,
and had fifteen members of the public attend the meeting. As a result, the motion that was brought from
the floor was not was picked up by a member, therefore it was dropped.
Faculty
Senate has been asked to put together a formal set of recommendations to the
Chancellor as to why they passed a resolution regarding KUAC.
Regent
Brian Rogers was their guest speaker and gave an impromptu state-of-the-university
address. He made a comment that if the
University did not get PERS/TRS fully funded by the legislature, then UA would
have to decrease its staff by 5%.
The
Council did pass a resolution regarding the sale of tobacco at
9. Agenda
items for next meeting,
Director of Faculty Staff
Development recruitment, Employee Education Benefits, Legislative Update,
Wellness Project, ACAS 2, NORP 2, Retirement Committee, Governance Regulation
10. Other
items of interest
Debra informed the group
that Human Resources is bringing someone to assess the communications at the
university at the end of January.
11. Comments
No comments.
12. Adjourn
Meeting adjourned at