Minutes for February

Thursday, February 21, 2008, 2 P.M.
Avaya Auditorium - ACES building

Members Present

Sharon Bernard, Craig Blaha, Benjamin Bond, Linda Breining, Layne Brewster-Smith, Gus Castellanos, Johnnie Conley, Vickie Drake, Lara Eakins, Nelson Fahlund, Danielle Fournier, Lisa Gentry, John Goutier, Chrissi Guerrero, Phillip Guerrero, Bretna Hackert, Martha Harrison, Sarah Hlavac, Sara Jackson Watson, Dreya Johannsen, Troy Johnson, Emil Kresl, Vicki Kullberg, Rebecca Ledbetter, Debra Madden, Gary Martt, Jennifer McClain, Michael McFarlin, Rita Moreno, Joyce Moyer, Linda Overton, Pamela  Owen, Eric Patkowski, Martha Ramey, Ben Rodriguez, Christopher Scherer, Mark Smyth, Allison Supancic, Barbara Thompson, Mindy Thompson, Robert Walker, Erin Waneck, Leigh Ashley Williams, Blake Willms, Denise Zuniga.

Members Absent With Notification: Timothy Barber, Drew Carls, Bob Hemby, Elaine Rafferty, Janet Reed, Meredith Taylor, Dixie Terry, Evan Turner, Brittany Wilson.

Members Absent: Joe Barroso, Denise Berry, Steven Brahm, Greg Browning, Tommy Downey, Richard Lee, Shelton Lewis, Cindy May, Kimberly Montroy, Monica Pena-Mercado, Felix Sanchez Jr., Helen Wormington, Vicki Nguyen-Student Rep.

Meeting began at 2:00 PM, with a quorum present. 

Chair, Erin Waneck:

• Reminds everyone that our next meeting is March 20th, and if you can not make it to notify the Recording Secretary Benjamin Rodriguez
• May meeting is during graduation and we need to vote if we would like to change the date. It is currently set for the 15th of May. Everyone check your calendars and get back if you feel we need to change this time. This is also the month we have the Ice Cream Social and we need to reserve the room because we can’t have it in the Ace building.
• The DRO report was sent out and if you get a chance to read it please do so because the last four pages contain the comments. (http://www.utexas.edu/hr/pm/dispute_report.pdf) We will present our feedback to the Council at a later date. If you have any comments you would like to add to our report, please email them to Ex Comm. (excomm@utsc.utexas.edu)
• We are having our first Brown Bag on the 26th of February in the Quadrangle Room 3.304 in the Texas Union. Please make sure you pickup some flyers and post them in your area, especially in the areas that don’t have computer access.
• We have a PO Box for the Brochure. This is an actual PO Box and not Campus Mail. The only other option was to have a box in HRS where our mail would be opened to distribute to the rightful place.  We hope that the cost of a stamp will not discourage people from sending in comments or issues since this way they remain confidential. People can still email or call us if they don’t want to spend money on the stamp.
• A Student Group has contacted me concerning Orange Santa. They were concerned that there is Staff who can’t afford gift for their children at the Holiday time. They are willing to do some research for us and there is an outstanding issue concerning Merit Raises, and they might like work on both issues since they are related.

CHAIR introduces Vice-Chair Danielle Fournier  

Vice-Chair

• There was a message sent out about a new Ad-Hoc Committee, Evaluations.

• Mini Thompson
• Tommy Downey
• Debra Madden

• We will take names for this Committee for a few more days and then set up a meeting.

CHAIR

• The minutes where just sent out and so we will wait for next month to approve them so everyone has time to read them.
• Introduces Eric Patkowski, By-Laws Chair on changes to the By-Laws.

Eric Patkowski

• The addition of At-Large Reps. to Section IV (F).
• #4 had changes to it from the first reading
• Open discussion. Phillip Guerrero would like to see all names brought forward to the Council to be voted on.

Chair: We had discussed this at the last meeting and feel that this would be too cumbersome and possibly take up an entire meeting.
Debra Madden: Are you asking if there are 100 and the Ex Comm. picks seven, then we vote from there or do you want to vote on all 100?
Phillip: Right, if there are seven I want to vote on those seven.
Bretna Hackert: Would like to be able to vote on ALL submitted candidates, even if it was just from a list of names given to members before the meeting.
Sharon Bernard: How many vacancies do we have right now on the Council? I would like to vote on all candidates.
Erin: We talked about this in the Ex Comm. But, since we cannot get everyone to come who is elected, do we really even need an election if we only get 3 candidates?
Mark Smyth 451: If there is a vacancy, it is filled by the runner up if there was one. The At-Large are just to help fill these vacancies. And since we have many vacancies from districts that only had one person running, an At-Large Rep. opens up some of the other districts that have more people interested in running to take part in UTSC. We don’t want to get bogged down in procedure, but to fill open positions.
Erin: We are trying to make it simple, not just bless the 3 that the Ex Comm. hand picked
Blake Willms 652: Are these At-large going to be assigned districts or will they be at large?
Erin: They will be truly At-Large with the idea that they will communicate to districts that are unrepresented.
Blake: What if they don’t fulfill their duties.
Erin: The By-Laws have a procedure to remove people and I do believe we can make a motion to have someone removed from the floor.
Blake: I would suggest adding that wording to this.
Ben Rodriguez: Are these going to be voting members or not.
Erin: They are voting
Phillip: I feel we need to add that they are held to the same rules as the Elected Reps. that being they can not run for At-Large if they can run as a Representative (sect III D) and that they can be a Chair or Co-Chair on a committee or an Ex Comm. officer. Motion to Amend.
Motion second.
Motion Passed.

CHAIR thanks Eric and he is still working on the changes for Committees.
            Invites Debra Madden from the Issues Committee.

Debra Madden

• 2007-14: Veterans Day Observance. To observe this day for those who have fought for our country, since we cannot add Holidays to the year.

• Voted to accept for discussion.

• Vickie Drake 130: Is this going to be another day off or to use one of the Winter Break days?

• This would not be an additional day because that takes Legislation.

• Robert Walker Dist 660: I am a veteran and I would like to see this as a day off for Veterans.

• Motion to Amend
• Motion 2nd
• Passed to send to Comp. and Class. Committee

• 2007-8: Move-In. Parking and Congestion on campus during this time presents difficulties for Students, Parents, AND Staff and Faculty who work this day.

• Voted to validate and open for discussion.
• Recommended to go to Parking

• Ben Rodriguez: I find this interesting because they ask Staff to help with the Move-In. If you ask Staff to help why is this on a day I have to work?
• Layne Smith: I do not know if this is a parking/transportation issue, I feel that will be on how they structure Move-In. Housing and Foods maybe because it is with the dorms.
• Erin: Do you think this requires an investigation or a letter?
• Bretna: I think the event itself is hosted by the Dean of Student and Housing and Foods. I think we can suggest a shuttle that day to help Staff back and forth from their jobs.
• Danielle Fournier dist 210.1: I think a carefully drafted letter to Dr. Harkens, Housing and Food Director and all the key people linked to Move-In would be a better idea then sending this to a committee.
• Phillip: I would like to suggest that maybe we have a spot on the Planning Committee so that we can have a voice there.
• Erin: Do I have a volunteer to draft this letter?
• Gary Martt : Volunteer to draft the letter.

• Motion to write the letter with the suggestion of UTSC having a seat on the Planning Committee.
• Motion 2nd
• Passed

• 2007-15: Parking in garages. Sometimes when a couple share cars and drive to work together the pass may be in the other car. Would like to see that the Garage be able to look up our license and not charge us to park.

• Voted to give to Parking and Transportation

• Erin: The same thing may happen if you have a share pass and need to go to the doctor, you get charged on your re-entry. Maybe we could add this to this issue.

• Motion to validate
• motion 2nd
• Passed

• 2007-16: Standardized University Standards and Procedures. Each Department can have their own standards and they don’t need to be published or in writing. There needs to be one place you can call and find out what you can and can’t do and get the correct answer.

• Voted to send forward, but didn’t know where to send.

• Chris Scherer dist 511: I asked a supervisor about that and his impression was that a policy varies from department and this is a good reason to ask for this to change.
• Vickie: I think it would be good to know the Hierarchy. What Policy trumps the other?
• Erin: that is in the proposal, because some standards go against State Law, and we need to be told about it somewhere, somehow.
• Danielle: I have to deal with a case about absences and we had to have a paper trail, and I went through HRS to work on how to handle the situation and they wanted a paper trail.
• Layne Brewster-Smith dept 451: I know that in my department, if you zero out your leave time and you get 8 hours the next month, one supervisor requires that you have a doctors note. This is not written anywhere.
• Phillip Guerrero: I have an opposite to that situation because I had an employee that as soon as they had occurred more sick time they would take it. So, we had to implement requesting Dr. notes to legitimize the excuse. You aren’t supposed to use sick time for vacation.
• Erin: All supervisors have that leeway, but we are talking about a standard not problem employees.
• Phillip: this has good intent, but I’m worried about policy and practice. We may make something policy but the practice from department to department always varies. We have to be careful because we could standardize ourselves out of jobs. I think the way we approach it needs to be different. Maybe just in the wording.
• Sharon Bernard: It is true that each department works differently, but we do need to have some kind of standard that is acceptable.
• Debra Madden: We need to start smaller on this.
• Phillip: I would suggest that we write a letter to the Deans of departments and ask them to come up with a written policy so that there is something to reference on the books.
• Erin: I would like to see some type of harmonization in this process, because when a supervisor may enforce something that another one does not, this could lead to favoritism and other problems.
• Vickie Drake: If you have a standard that people don’t know about, you can’t hold them to that standard until they know about it. How can you write them up for something they didn’t know?
• Erin: I agree. I would never write someone up for something they did not know about. I would bring it to their attention and document that, then if they did it again I could write them up at that time.
• Emil Kresl dept 122: I was wondering if we could get it so that Policies are enforceable, not standards.
• Debra: I believe there is a State Law that says you can be held liable for standards because they are based on actions.
• Mark Smyth: I think that this is a good topic to add to the Ad-Hoc Committee that Danielle is forming for the Evaluations.

• Motion to adopt and send to the Ad-Hoc Committee and write to HRS requesting them to ask Department to inform employees of their Standards BEFORE they write them up.
• Discussion: What is the letter stating?

Only that HRS asks Departments that they inform Employees of standards before they write them up.
 Is it the Chair of UTSC or of the Committee writing the letter?
The Chair of UTSC as was stated.
This should go the Committee to write the letter because there is a conflict of interest since the Chair wrote the proposal.
You (Erin) brought this forward on someone else’s behalf, so I don’t think there is a conflict of interest if you write the letter, so lets just vote.

• Motion 2nd
• Passed

CHAIR introduces Ashley Williams, Chair of the Communications Committee

Ashley Williams

• 2004-18: Create and maintain a list of Faculty and Staff Organizations.

• This already exists in the Office of Dean of Students.
• Recommending adding this link to our webpage, directing Staff to this page and requesting that UTSC be added to this data base since this data base has other Staff Organizations in it.
• Request that they change the webpage title to be University Organizations since Faculty and Staff Organizations are listed here.
• Discussion, Debra Madden: How do we get other Organizations to be put on this list? Do we know that ALL are on this list?
• Ashley: You have to fill out an application to be put on the list.
• Debbie Miller: I wrote this Issue and now there is also a list on HRS Staff page that only has the names of the Organizations I already knew about. I would like to know if there is way to determine if Staff is allowed to join certain groups, because as of right now there is no way to know if one allows Staff to join or not.
• Ashley: Maybe we should put this back into Committee to investigate further.

• 2005-23: Emergency Evacuation Procedures for Staff

• The University is handling this currently and there is a webpage, text messaging and the monthly testing of emergency sirens. (www.utexas.edu/emergency/)
• Linda Breining: I was wondering if we could take an informal poll to see who knows if/that their building has an emergency evacuation plan. In Liberal Arts we do not have one. The College has one but the individual buildings do not. This is now going outside the Communications Committee.
• Bretna Hackert: When the lights go out in the Tower the Emergency lights do too. This is because they are wired wrong. We drafted a letter and sent it to the Office of Emergency Procedures. I feel that if you are aware of an issue like this in your Department then you can write a letter with your concerns also. Then if you do not hear back or get the results desired then bring it to UTSC attention.
• Chris Scherer: Just a suggestion, you might want to get hold of Electrical Distribution because your emergency power is suppose to be hooked up to an emergency generator.
• Erin: I would like to add this as a link to our web page. I feel this is a closed issue and motion to close.
• Motion 2nd.
• Passed

• Room change on the Brown Bag for the Eastwood Room to the Quadrangle Room.

CHAIR introduces Vickie Drake for the Insurance Committee

Vickie Drake reporting on the SWIAC meeting and the Insurance Committee

• The Insurance Committee meet last week and we discussed issue 2007-7
• If you opt-out of insurance because you may be covered on your spouse’s policy, you need to make sure that there is no clause that states that if you opt-out of insurance that your employer provides you will not be covered by your spouse’s. SO CHECK YOUR SPOUSE’S POLICY.

• Benjamin Rodriguez: Is there a way we can get that out campus wide. This just seems like an important piece of knowledge. I would like to recommend that the Chair of the Insurance Committee to write a letter requesting that this get sent out campus wide.
• Erin: I would like this letter to include a statement about when you retire that you need to sign up for insurance in order to be covered. Otherwise you have to pay for Cobra if you miss the due date.
• Motion for the Chair of the Insurance Committee to write the proposed letter.
• Motion 2nd
• Passed.

• SWIAC Met on January 24-25th. If you would like to see the compilation of the summary you can contact me.

• Introduced the new Wellness coordinator ?????? (Possibly Rolanda Ramond)
• UT will be promoting Wellness at each campus and they are looking for suggestions in how to get people to get their annual exams. So, if you have an idea or know someone with one please help them out.
• It is being looked into to shorten the enrollment period do to the fact that 85% of those who enroll don’t until the last week available. This ties up the entire department for a month which cost money…
• UT Systems is trying to limit the number of Fairs held and make more of the information available online.
• There will be a Financial education column added to the news letters put out by Office of Employee Benefits (OEB).
• Plan Design Committee has announce there will be no further changes do to good out look. This means no premium increases during the next fiscal years
• There was discussion to increase the Flex Max amount but it was decided to leave it as it is.
• UT Systems has authorized to auto call members to inform them it is time for a wellness exam.
• Nelson Fahlund: My son had to pay $257 out of pocket for his glasses, we got a better discount from the store, and so what good is this vision coverage?
• Vickie: Many people are coming to that same conclusion. Vision you can opt in, and many do.
• Mark Smyth: I think that when you write that letter you should include EAC and the Chairs of other UT Councils.
• Debra Madden: In the Flex Plan I think there is a clause that says in order claim your Child Care you cant have a break in employment so people who are on Maternity Leave and have to take Leave Without Pay issues arise.
• Vickie: I’ll have to look into that so would you please email me about that.
• Debra Madden: The Legislation passed new rules for FMLA regarding Veterans concerning the wounded and deployment. This is an expansion so it seems to be a good thing.

CHAIR introduces Linda Breining Chair of the Elections Committee

Linda Breining

• If you look at you name badge and you have an even number that means you have an election coming up. If you are up for election and you want to run again please send me an email saying that you are willing.
• We are working with HRS on setting up a template for all who are running so that we can post to the web the information that you summit (including photos if you choose to) for the constituents to view.
• Our goal is to have at least one person in each district run and if you term is up we ask you to please try and suggest one or more people to run in you seat.
• We are working on an automated nomination form. This would generate and email to the person nominated to inform them of the nomination.

• Mark Smyth: Will there be paper forms to fill out at the Brown Bag on Monday the 17th?
• That sounds like a great idea

CHAIR introduces Pamela Owen from the Grievance Committee

Pamela Owen

• We are still working on the Work Climate Survey (proposal 2007-10). We met and discussed the amount of time the survey should take and what types of questions to include.
• Erin sent a copy of an Admin. Assistant survey from Texas State that we like parts of and so we are looking at that, too.
• We not only want to ask questions about satisfaction but accomplishments so UT Admin can see our accomplishments.

Chair motions to adjourn

Motion to Adjourn
2nd.
Passed

Meeting Adjourned 3:30

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