Draft Minutes

 

Tuesday, April 6, 2004

Conference Room, Main Floor, Prospector Hotel

Juneau, Alaska

 

1.          Call to order and roll call

Members present:

 

Rory O’Neill, Chair                                                     Lisa Sporleder, Vice Chair

Robert Sewell, UAS Staff Council                               Rita Fuller, UAS Staff Council

Kimberly Stanford, UAA Classified                            Josh Steadman, UAF Staff Council       

Employee Council

 

Guests:

 

Reyne Athanas UAF Staff Council

Sandra Burgess UAS Staff Council 

JoAnn Costello UAA Classified Employee Council

Tracy Petrosine-Cyphert UAA Classified Employee Council

Ian Herbert ASUAF Leg relations

Gary Newman UAF Staff Council

Maya Salganek UAF Staff Council

                             

System Governance Staff:

Pat Ivey, Executive Director

Hans Gunderson, Admin Coordinator

Mark Graves Coalition Legislative Coordinator

 

2.          Adopt agenda

 

            MOTION:     (passed as amended without objection)

 

“The Staff Alliance moves to adopt the agenda for the April 6, 2004 meeting. This action is effective April 6, 2004.”

 

3.          Approve Minutes of the March 2, 2004 Meeting                   

                http://gov.alaska.edu/Staff/Minutes/2004/2004-03-02.html

http://gov.alaska.edu/Staff/Minutes/2004/2004-03-02.pdf

 

            MOTION:     (passed without objection)

 

“The Staff Alliance moves to approve the minutes of the March 2, 2004 meeting. This action is effective April 6, 2004.”

 

4.         Chair’s report - Rory O’Neill

            Ad Hoc Committee on Accountability & Sustainability

                http://www.alaska.edu/acas/report/details.xml

 

ACAS held its second two-day retreat and final meeting in Anchorage. The draft report summarizing all the members’ views and comments on the cross-MAU team recommendations. The recommendations concerned the possible administrative savings and efficiency areas. The draft has still been posted to the ACAS website.

 

 

            UA Choice

 

Mike Humphrey is making the rounds on the campuses and meeting with staff on the new UA Choice Plan. It is hoped the staff have been informed enough to make the right choice.

 

            Make Students Count Award

 

UAF had only three nominees for the award, in the past the committee has seen up to 20 nominees. The Chair would like to know how the process is going in the other governance groups.

 

            Reclassification

 

In the process of staff reclassification HR called in an outside consultant to look at classification of exempt positions under the Fair Labor Standards Act. This resulted in a recommendation to reclassify positions from exempt to non-exempt based on interpretation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.  It has been the roll of staff governance to inform staff of their rights. If a staff members position has not changed but has been reclassified to non-exempt the person in the position stands to gain up to two years of uncompensated overtime, three years if the employer intentionally classified the person to save funds.  Your local governance groups will be the only voice informing staff that this is the law and their right. 

 

5.         Public comment

 

            There were no public comments.

 

6.         Staff governance reports

 

Statewide Administration Assembly

 

Lisa Sporleder of the Statewide Administration Assembly said the Assembly recently called a special meeting to look over the nominees for the Make Students Count Award. Statewide received two nominees.  This is consistent with the number of nominations received in the past. The group is preparing for the annual employee awards and luncheon. Newly elected SAA members will also be announced at the luncheon.

 

UAS

 

Rita Fuller of the UAS Staff Council announced that group received seven Make Students Count Award nominees. Mike Humphrey made a presentation on UA Choice and on the pension.  Robert Sewell has been looking into whether the pension plan is adequately protected. Fuller also asked  why does the University of Alaska not have a catastrophic events insurance policy. It cost the University $6 million in one year from three or four catastrophic events, costs which are passed on to university employees in increased employee contributions.

 

UAA

 

Kimberly Stanford said that the University of Alaska Anchorage has finished its Chancellor search and President Hamilton selected Dr. Elaine Maimon, current provost of Arizona State University West and Vice President of Arizona State University. The UAA Classified Council is looking forward to the chancellor’s awards and the spring leadership summit. The Classified Council is going over its new grievance handbook and is looking for the best place to house it for the future. Mike Humphrey has also made presentations on UA Choice to the Anchorage campus. 

 

UAF   

 

Josh Steadman said that the UAF Staff Council is preparing the longevity awards. The council is looking forward to upcoming elections. The Chancellor search is under way and hopefully will be concluding shortly. The council is also participating in UAF Day in North Pole which is a community building effort by the University. UAF HR is recognizing governance participation as training.

 

Action Items

 

7.         Develop the Staff Alliance message for the

            April 14-15, 2004 Board of Regents meeting in Sitka

 

Rita Fuller will be present in Sitka for the Board of Regents meeting as the Staff Alliance representative. Rory O’Neill hopes to sit in on the meetings via video conference.

 

In regards to the governance regulation the Alliance wishes to express to the BOR the basis of the proposed regulation which is to recognize that governance participation by staff is part of the business of the University and governance is vital to the health of the institution.

 

In regards to the proposed deletion of the section of Regents Policy 3.01.01,  “Faculty, Staff, and Student Governance which provides that spokespersons can provide testimony directly to the Board of Regents, this was found in the consent portion of the April Board of Regents agenda titled the “Revision to Regent’s Policy Regarding Required Actions”. At the Board of Regents retreat in January, the regents expressed the concern that they were getting bogged down with reports. The Board asked the president to come to them with a list of items that are in policy but not required. What does the Board of Regents have to do because of statutes, law and constitution? At the February meeting the Board of Regents asked Jamo Parrish to over look the list to see what could legally be removed. This list was placed on the April agenda. The overall consensus of the Staff Alliance is that any item directly affecting governance should be addressed by governance before it moves to finalization by the Board of Regents.

 

            MOTION:     (passed amended without objection)

 

"The University of Alaska Staff Alliance strongly reaffirms  the right, the wisdom and the need to freely communicate the aspirations and concerns of our constituency.

 

As such, the Alliance insists that the right of direct discourse with regents be maintained.

 

We thus solidly oppose Board of Regents Human Resources Committee Motion #1 regarding Regents Policy 03.01.01 which abrogates this right. We therefore request that the motion be removed from the consent agenda of the April, 2004 Board of Regents meeting, and also be rejected.

 

In addition, we again request that the administration hold prior discussion with us on those items which substantially affect University of Alaska Classified and APT staff.

 

This action is effective April 6, 2004."

 

8.         Staff Alliance Chair

 

Rory O’Neill has accepted a position with Statewide, he has been allowed by the UAF Staff Council to finish his term as Council President. The question before the Alliance is should the Chair Rory O’Neill continue as Chair and finish his term.

 

            MOTION:     (passed amended without objection)

 

“The Staff Alliance moves that Chair Rory O’Neill retain his current position until the end of his term of office. This action is effective April 6, 2004.”

 

9.         Other Action Items

 

Information/Discussion Items

 

10         Legislative Update                                                                           

             Pete Kelly, UA Government Relations Director

 

The update will be given the following on the morning of April 7th.

 

11.        Legislative Meeting Schedule - Hans Gunderson

 

Gunderson passed a sign up sheet and stated that he would have the final schedule for the participants on the morning of April 7th.

                                                                                                           

12.        Cookie Brigade Update - Pat Ivey

 

Ivey introduces the Cookie Brigade tradition and the 2004 apron. Ivey asks if the group would like to change the way in which the brigade has been conducted over the past years. Seeing no change Ivey asked for volunteers for the early morning cookie packet deliveries.

 

13.        Amended bylaws                                                                 

 

The Amended bylaws have been passed and are inserted in the Staff Alliance bylaws.

 

http://gov.alaska.edu/staff/Constitution/bylaws.pdf

 

Robert Sewell asked if Hans Gunderson could get the actions page of the Staff Alliance web page update. Gunderson replied that he would work on getting that updated.

 

14.        Overview of Committee on Accountability and Sustainability                

 

In the regent’s agenda the president will be giving a presentation to the Board of Regents on the activities of ACAS. Many of the recommendation will have substantial costs to implement and the president will be going to the UA foundation to cover many of these costs.

 

15.        Report on the Compensation Task Force                                     

 

Chair O’Neill asked for comments from participants on the task force on how they feel the project is moving.

 

Sporleder commented that she has recently received a hefty notebook of data that has been collected. Members reviewed this information and are looking forward to the next round of data. The group was informed that the private sector data which the group had requested is not available as those sources do not make such information public. Vice President Jim Johnsen has allocated two full time staff members to this task force.

 

Sewell asked if this would take the place of the expected salary studies following the reclassification project, and if the task force is looking at just  wages or the whole benefit package. Sewell was concerned that the administration will move to give a benefit package the same rework of the health plan and move to something surrounding benefit choice program.

 

Fuller asked  how the task force was looking at geographic differentials.

 

O’Neill asked that Vice President Johnsen for clarification on the administration’s philosophy on compensation.

 

Burgess asks about what is the turnover rate, where is the University on retention?

 

16.        UA Choice Update

 

The third bulletin is in the mail and open enrollment begins shortly. O’Neill asked if the group was pleased by the role governance played in this initiative. The Alliance members expressed that overall the communication between the administration and staff was exemplary and Mike Humphrey and the benefits group should be highly commended for there work. It was a positive experience for work between administration and governance.

                       

17.        Update on development of a governance regulation                   

                http://gov.alaska.edu/Staff/2004-02-10.amend-draftreg03.01.01.pdf

 

The  governance regulation subcommittee met the previous week and has produced a working governance regulation draft. One change is in the draft is that the participation process includes notification to supervisors about individual governance participation. Meetings of the subcommittee will continue with representatives from faculty, students and the administration. While the subcommittee would welcome input from all the governance groups it is wondered if the could not move from the committee to the System Governance Council for final approval. Possible finalization for the regulation is expected to come by late fall.

 

18.        Other items of interest

 

Chair O’Neill asked the Alliance to address the issues of concern for the University to place itself in the position to pay for its share of medical benefits and not pass raising costs on to  of employees and to be proactive in dealing with the rising costs of health care not just for today but, five-ten years out. O’Neill will be working on a draft motion addressing this concern.

 

Steadman mentioned that the naming policy the alliance looked at the last meeting was and early draft and the Alliance should see an updated draft shortly.

 

19.        Agenda items for the next meeting – Tuesday, May 11, 2003

 

            Agenda items are due in the System Governance Office ten days in advance of the next meeting.

 

20.       Round table

 

The Alliance broke for a short round table discussion.

 

21.        Adjourn The meeting was adjourned at 4: 36pm.