Minutes for Thursday, October 19, 2006

Main 212 2-3:30pm
Prepared by: Mark Anthony Gonzalez

Members Present: Timothy Barber, Sharon Bernard, Linda Breining, Layne Brewster-Smith, Gregory Browning, Lisa Camero, Vanessa Cobb, Tommy Downey, Lara Eakins, Nelson Fahlund, Danielle Fournier (Vice-Chair), Christine Gauger, Mark Gonzalez, Philip Guerrero, Bretna M Hackert, Tom Horn, Sara Jackson Watson, Dreya Johannsen, Troy Johnson, Amy Jones, Richard Lee, Shelton Lewis, Keke Kelly Liao, Debra Madden, Gary Martt, Michael McFarlin, Alan McKendree, Terry Moore, Rita Moreno, Joyce Moyer, Linda Overton, Heather Pafk, Eric Patkowski, Billie Pierce, Martha Ramey, Carl Roell, Chris Scherer, Olen Smith, Allison Supancic, Barbara Thompson, Salwa Uzri, Erin Waneck (Chair), James Watson, Ashley Williams, Kimberly Williams, Blake Willms

Members Absent With Notification: James Cogburn, Johnnie Conley, Vickie Drake, Claudia Gerardo, James Janknegt, Mari Johnson, Kimberly Montroy, Pamela Owen, Monica Pena-Mercado, Nadine Schulte, Kim Wallace, Debbie Warden

Members Absent: Patrice Fox, Candace Legge, Cynthia May, Elaine Rafferty, Ben Rodriguez, Felix Sanchez, Sandra Sleeper

Guests: Steve Brahm, Debra Kress, Monica Reed

Meeting commenced at 2:00pm with quorum.

Chair introduces Connie Deutsch who is here to present a new policy that allows supervisors to send employees home if they are unable to function.

On July 5 of this year a new policy was approved for the HOP to address employees' fitness for duty (http://www.utexas.edu/policies/hoppm/07.E.05.html). This policy permits departments to deal with apparently impaired staff or faculty who are creating a safety hazard, without resorting immediately to disciplinary action. We created this policy after two years of benchmarking and interviewing other universities and tracking similar incidents on our campus. We now have the foundation to intervene with severely impaired employees who are working in an unsafe manner, to stop them from performing potentially unsafe tasks, and to require that they have a medical evaluation before returning to work duties. This is handled by the EAP working with the supervisor or department manager.

Information is confidential and upheld by State law; even President Powers cannot see the information collected. In fourteen years there has not been a breach in confidentiality. If something dangerous, to oneself or others is demonstrated, it must be reported.

Employees are expected to come to work fit and able to do their duties. Employees and managers are responsible for safety in the workplace.

Tom voices concern that medical records are confidential but questions why a waiver must be signed. Mrs. Deutsch explains that a waiver must be signed in order for medical records to be released to EAP. Those records remain confidential while in EAP's possession.

EAP should be contacted in order to determine how to handle the situation/employee. Open and departmental training sessions will be held to educate employees. EAP, not supervisors determines what kind of medical attention is required in order to return to work. All employees have a responsibility to report to work “fit for duty” and any medical attention required will be absorbed by the employee. This is aimed at all employees; faculty and staff. After hours EAP can be contacted if needed. If danger is present, you should call UTPD immediately. Layne Smith, a UTPD officer, tells UTSC that officers working for over two years are mental health officers too.

Most EAP consultation is done by phone. There is usually not a need to go to EAP offices. There are no medical doctors at EAP. In case of an emergency contact UTPD first. UTPD will dispatch EMS. EAP is there to work with the follow-up of the situation. If calling on a cell phone and on campus you will be rerouted to UTPD dispatch. Please program the UTPD emergency number into your cell phone: 512-471-4441

A PowerPoint presentation can be found at: http://www.utexas.edu/hr/eap/fitness.pdf

Announcements:

Next meeting will be Thursday, November 16, 2006 from 11:30pm to 2:00pm, Glen Maloney Room in the SSB for Potluck Thanksgiving meal and UTSC general meeting, provided UTSC wants to participate. UTSC will be providing a smoked turkey and UTSC representatives can bring desserts and sides.

The Chair has been working to invite President Powers to a UTSC meeting. Our UTSC meeting time is a direct conflict with one of his standing meetings. UTSC will meet in February from 1-2:30pm instead of the usual time in order to accommodate his schedule.

Chair's report:

The UTSC Executive Committee will attend its first retreat, to set long term goals for the future of Staff Council. We will be taking a look at our mission statement to see if it reflects who we are and what we do as a council. The Communication Committee is working on a brochure for UTSC. We are asking that you submit, on the index card you receive, a slogan or motto that you feel reflects our organization. We will compile them, and present the top five at the November meeting to be voted on. The representative, whose motto is selected, will be taken to lunch by the chair! Email can be sent to excomm@utsc.utexas.edu if you have any suggestions or topics you think need attention.

The Employee Advisory Council will be meeting in Austin on October 23rd. Please contact the Chair if there is an issue you would like presented at that meeting you feel would benefit other campuses throughout the UT System. The Chair will bring the need for an Ombudsman for staff to the meeting. The University of Houston has an Ombudsman for faculty and staff that is shared. UT has a separate one for faculty and students.

Recorder-Approval of minutes/Quorum

The Secretary asks for understanding and forgiveness for not having the minutes done in a timely manner. Thus, no minutes are prepared to be approved at this meeting. The Secretary wishes to express the importance of getting minutes to members in a timely manner and promises to do a better job at preparing and disseminating UTSC minutes.

Grievance Committee-Nadine Schulte

Nadine Schulte was not at the present but the UTSC Chair, who serves on this Committee, gave a status report of the work the Grievance Committee is discussing. One of the issues includes a grievance being put into an employee file but not the supervisors file. Mr. Carter suggested that perhaps no one should have a grievance in their file since no one looks at them there. He further suggested that HR could monitor these in order to spot problem areas. The Committee is leaning towards having the grievance be placed in the supervisor’s file in addition to the employee. UTSC reps are encouraged to get feedback from their constituents in order to help develop a solution.

Personnel files are not forwarded according to Debra Kress. The files stay within the department and subject to record retention policies. Anything that is not confidential is available to anyone under the Open Records Act. Nothing confidential, like medical records, should be kept in your personnel file. A personnel file can be requested during the interview process. Tom asks what the University policy regarding personnel files is. Debra Kress encourages staff to rebut anything in their personnel file in writing, though it is not currently policy. Some UTSC reps point out the fact that there is no uniformity across campus with regards to evaluations; they aren’t timely, or tied to merit raises in many cases. Anything that goes into a personnel file must be disclosed to the employee.

Another issue being reviewed by the Grievance Committee includes the disclosure of confidentiality when dealing with ER in order to help staff understand what and when something is confidential. The Grievance Committee will be working with HR on language to better explain policies within the entities in HR, including ER.

Issues Committee-Amy Jones, Chair

Amy asks UTSC reps to look at the newly updated web page and the status of issues. Please inform Amy of any updates or corrections. If you have suggestions to issues forms, for instance, do we need a public statement as an option, please inform Amy.

Issue 2006-17: Awning for Speedway Garage: Awning for sidewalk between steps from Speedway Garage and side entrance of NOA Building. On bad weather days, employees are getting soaked going from the Speedway Garage to the entrance of the NOA Building. Joyce Moyer suggests that the real issue is poor design and a potential ADA issue. Bretna Hackert believes that this is also a safety issue and not just an inconvenience. People often shake their umbrellas off when they come into the building posing a hazard. Issue is accepted and sent to the Facilities Committee for further investigation.

Compensation and Classification-Alan McKendree

Issue 2006-9: Ability for employee to add comments to evaluation. Departments can, at their discretion, allow employees to leave comments/feedback on their evaluation. Comp and Class would like to recommend, given that the Annual Performance Evaluation form is the official instrument for employee evaluation at UT, the following additions to help establish a fair experience to all concerned:

1) A sentence should be included at the bottom of the existing form for employee comments on the evaluation. It should read as or very close to:

Employee Comments (use more sheets if needed)

As the present form only extends about halfway down the second page, this provides about half a page for comments before additional sheets are needed.

2) Verbiage should be added to the effect that the employee has a right to receive a copy of the evaluation.

Recommendation is for Chair to write a letter to HR and President Powers to make the above recommendations policy. UTSC accepts and approves the recommendation.

Many departments have different standards. Joyce Moyer explains that she thinks the public statement option is needed to inform the UT community of the new policy.

Bylaws and Procedures Committee-Tom Horn, Chair

There was a lot of feedback with regards to the issue of filling vacancies on the Executive Committee. Due to the amount of feedback, B&P will further study the proposed change and make some additional changes/drafts.

The second proposed change to the bylaws dealing with the membership of the Executive Committee had little comment. The Executive Committee shall be the UTSC’s elected officers, the chairs of standing committees and ex officio members. UTSC standing committees include Bylaws and Procedures, Committee of Committees, Communications, Issues, Mentoring, Nominations and Elections. The immediate past Chair of UTSC may server as a non-voting ex officio member. The Mentoring Committee will be known as the Resources Committee. UTSC waives the second reading. UTSC accepts and adopts the proposed change.

Bylaws will be redrafting an entire section, please read Section 8, dealing with standing committees next. Proposed changes will continue to be reviewed, as in the past, with handouts of the current bylaw and the suggested revision. Due to the length of the proposed change, a whole section, we may dispense with the reading as Robert’s Rules allows.

New Business:

The Chair asks that you submit, on the index card you received, a slogan or motto that you feel reflects our organization. We will compile them, and present the top five at the November meeting to be voted on. The representative, whose motto is selected, will be taken to lunch by the chair!

Danielle Fournier has some issues to discuss: Should we move our monthly UTSC meeting to ACES; the issue with ADA was not meant to be callus and UTSC is working with HR to get a heads-up about future meetings/discussions in order for UTSC to have representation at all meetings.

ExComm is working with HR to develop a way for UTSC to disseminate information to all employees on campus. Joyce Moyer suggests that we put UTSC in the subject line in order to promote the work UTSC is doing. The Chair remarks that Mr. Carter pointed out that some staff do not receive “Informational” emails because they can opt-out of them. Perhaps sending “Operational” emails would be more effective. All email should be succinct and not abused.

Steve Brahm was introduced by the Vice-Chair as a new rep replacing Vicki Heydron, 621. He works at Pickle Research Center, in the Center for Electromechanics. ExComm will be working aggressively to fill the vacancies in UTSC. ExComm met with HR this week and we learned that UTSC has been made a line-item in the budget. We now have $4,000 in our budget and we should be wise as to how we spend this money. One issue that has been discussed is the use of MAI 212. The cost of MAI 212 is $2,400 per year. ACES has agreed to extend the same courtesy it extends to the Town Hall Meetings – no cost for use of the room, recording, streaming our meetings live or for setup. Additionally, the room is multi-media ready. UTSC has tentative reservations for ACES thru June 2007 at our regularly scheduled time. A representative asks whether we will be able to keep the $2,400. The Vice-Chair responds that we will redirect those funds to other areas though all the details have not been finalized. UTSC does not have a Treasurer; it would have to be an elected officer/position. UTSC will work slowly towards managing its own funds. In the meantime, HR will assist with issues regarding funding issues and expenses.

The Chair suggests a meet and greet in order to make us more interactive. The Chair also reminds UTSC that HR does all our programming, web updates and other items in support of UTSC at no cost to us. The University of Houston has an $80,000 budget. $40,000 goes to a full-time support person and $5,000 goes to a scholarship they sponsor.

UTSC reps voice their opinions for and against moving our meetings to ACES. The Tower represents the heart of campus, Faculty Council uses MAI 212, and it is more conducive to interactive dialogue amongst many other reasons. The Chair also suggests that we can use both rooms. Reasons for moving to ACES include using the money to better educate staff about UTSC, better facilities and more options for keeping our constituents informed. We pay over $100 per hour to meet in MAI 212. The Chair does not know how fixed our budget is - details are still being discussed with HR.

Motion to create an ad-hoc Committee to study the subject of moving our meetings to ACES is not approved.

By a rising vote of 31-8, UTSC approves moving our meetings to ACES.

Tom suggests that we fine-tune the ACES setup, including microphone setups and positioning. The Vice-Chair, Danielle Fournier, asks that anyone with suggestions please email them to her. Suggestions have included a table in the back as well instructions on how to view the live feed.

Below is the report from the Faculty Council meeting of October 16, 2006 by Bretna Hackert:

1. President William Powers responded to Professor Palaima’s questions about athletics issues, including coaches’ salaries and athletes’ GPA.

2. The motion for Changes to the Core Curriculum for Undergraduates was not voted on. Time was spent debating and voting on amendments to the motion. Quorum was lost before the main motion could be voted on.

3. March 5, UT Austin Faculty Council will host a day-long meeting with A&Ms Faculty Council.

Meeting is adjourned at 3:40pm.