Minutes for December 2007

Friday, December 14, 2007, 2 p.m.
Avaya Auditorium - ACES building

Members Present

Sharon Bernard, Denise Berry, Craig Blaha, Benjamin Bond, Steven Brahm, Linda Breining, Drew Carls, Gus, Tommy Downey, Lara Eakins, Nelson Fahlund, Danielle Fournier, Lisa Gentry, John Goutier, Chrissi Guerrero, Bretna Hackert, Janice Hejl, Troy Johnson, Emil Kresl, Vicki Kullberg, Rebecca Ledbetter, Richard Lee, Gary Martt, Jennifer McClain, Pamela Owen, Eric Patkowski, Martha Ramey, Janet Reed, Ben Rodriguez, Mark Smyth, Allison Supancic, Meredith Taylor, Barbara Thompson, Mindy Thompson, Robert Walker, Erin Waneck, Leigh Ashley Williams, Vicki Nguyen-Student Rep

Members Absent With Notification

Layne Brewster-Smith, Greg Browning, Johnnie Conley, Vickie Drake, Phillip Guerrero, Martha Harrison, Sarah Hlavac, Dreya Johannsen, Debra Madden, Cindy May, Michael McFarlin, Rita Moreno, Joyce Moyer, Domingo Morales, Linda Overton, Monica Pena-Mercado, Elaine Rafferty, Christopher Scherer, Dixie Terry, Evan Turner, Blake Willms, Brittany Wilson, Denise Zuniga

Members Absent

Timothy Barber, Joe Barroso, Bob Hemby, Sara Jackson Watson, Shelton Lewis, Felix Sanchez Jr., Henna Tayyeb, Helen Wormington

Meeting commenced at 2 p.m. without quorum present.

Chair, Erin Waneck:

Introduces Cassandre Alvarado, Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Studies

Cassandre Alvarado (handout The University of Austin’ Quality Enhancement Plan: Signature Courses):

• What is the QEP? The University’s Quality Enhancement Plan.
• The University is in the middle of reaffirmation of accreditation through the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). Texas Tech is on probation through a similar accreditation for failure to meet the requirements. Part of our process of this is the development of a QEP.
• The QEP is a designed to improve the quality of the student learning. It should be broad, encompass as much of the University as possible, and should strive for quality in student learning out comes.
• The QEP came about through several conversations across campus and eventually was delegated to Dean Paul Woodrift. We were lucky in the fact that the university was already in the mist of re-evaluating and re-assess the state of our campus. That began with the Commission of 125 which began in 2003 concluding in ’05 and lead to the formation Taskforce on Curriculum Reform.
• QEP evolved from these two documents.
• Signature Courses will become the University’s quality master plan.

Our goal for QEP signature classes part of the QEP is that this is our most comprehensive effort at reforming Undergraduate education and will achieve this through:

• Increasing the accessibility of distinguished faculty to first-year students.
• Teaching certain skills directly—oral communication, writing, reasoning, and the interpretation of data—deemed necessary for our students to make good use of the instructional resources of the University, so that, on graduation, they may compete well in the global market.
• Introducing first-year students to the unique resources of the University, such as libraries, research facilities and museums.
• Providing first-year students with a broad understanding of inquiry across disciplines that may be new to them
• Giving students course content that has real-world transferability.
• Enhancing the intellectual climate on campus through first-year attendance at, and discussion of, a common series of lectures.

• Some Signature Courses are already in place and in Fall 2008, UGS 302 and 303 will be our signature course. These will replace the current pilot course FS 301 and work along with UGS 305 which are all ready in place.
• Even though the Taskforce recommended adding the Signature courses it has really elevated it to not just a faculty responsibility but to a campus wide one.
• We have an obligation to the reaffirmation of accreditation process to provide a comprehensive assessment of this goal for the next ten years. We will be working with DIIA (Division of Instructional Innovation and Assessment) to have all aspects of the Signature Courses.
• By 2010 all students who enter and first-year student will be required to take this course.
• As staff many of you will be "touched" by the QEP. Not only in the work done on the scheduling side or from the deans' offices but many will be affected because you work in the facilities that these courses are designed around.

View a draft copy of the QEP [link removed; no longer valid]

Open to questions through:

Q: Danielle District 210; For those of us that work in professional schools that go through regular accreditation, you are able to use that as part of the accreditation, are you not?

A: The SACS accreditation accredits the entire university independent of any other accreditation and accredits the university to give degrees to undergraduates, graduates and professionals. Professional school faculty are going to be teaching these Signature Courses giving the undergraduates access to many areas of campus normally out of their reach, such as the LBJ School of Law as well as others.

Q: Erin District 692; Isn’t it true that an institution that is not accredited can award degrees but are not considered on par with the national norm?

A: Yes, there are unaccredited institutions out there. It would be devastating for the university not to be accredited.

Q: Gus Castellanos 160.2; We have been using the Freshman Interest Groups (FIG) for quite awhile now, are the Signature Courses an extension of these or are they going to work side-by-side or will they be integrated?

A: They will be combined together. Those that are in FIG will be required to take Signature Courses; this should help such courses grow year after year.

Chair thanks Cassandre Alvarado for coming.

CHAIR

Followed up with Dr. Carter about the accessibility of computers in Facilities Services and he let us know that Rhonda Weldon has formed a study group that will survey this across the entire campus and will take about a nine month period to complete. Unfortunately, this will take longer than we hoped, but they are studying the entire campus to solve this matter completely and not just patch it here and there. Will keep you informed as we get updates on this project.

Faculty Council meeting is really interested in the Employee Discount Program and hopefully this will help bridge the gap between faculty and staff.

Chair invites Danielle Fournier to update on Outstanding Issues

Vice-Chair on Outstanding Issues

• Thanks Debra Madden and Sharon Bernard for their work on collecting the outstanding issues through the Issues Committee.
• Met with the Comp Class to resolve these past issues.
• If you need electronic copies of the list of issues please let Danielle know and she will send them out.
• Danielle is willing to meet with any committee to help sort out old and new issues and has made folders for each committee that has outstanding issues. There is a tracking document that should be used to track where an issue is in the system.
• Hope to tie-up all outstanding issues by the end of the year (this meaning the end of our term year).

CHAIR

The Executive Committee decided we do not have enough fun so I brought this Santa hat to have a little fun. It would be great if everyone who speaks if they would wear a silly hat while talking.

Chair calls to see if quorum reached. No quorum.

Approval of the November Minutes and By-Laws change held off until January meeting.

Chair calls Danielle Fournier to give a report on UTSWIAC

Danielle Fournier (standing in for Vickie Drake)

SWIAC is the the university System Wide Insurance Advisory Council. Two people from each component institution that go twice a year to discuss insurance issues. They then break down into three groups:

• Retiree
• Planning
• (Then the third)

October 2007 UTSWIAC meeting brief information:

• All forms of benefits experienced increased enrollment, except for Assurant Dental.
• 14,000 employees (university System wide) were rolled from the HMO into UT Select.
• UT Dental Select’s name is changing to UT Select Dental, due to a naming conflict with another plan.
• UT Flex has enough forfeitures to continue covering the administrative costs, after negative balances are taken care of.
• GASB45: Legislature and GASB at loggerheads, in legal wrangling over retiree benefits accounting. The university is planning to give full actuarial accounting in August 31, 2008.
• The new anonymous BIDs from Medco are causing some people problems, such as being charged two deductibles. Anyone in that situation should be getting a refund and apology letter from Medco.
• Legislature reinstated 95% of ERS levels of funding for higher education employees.
• Trends in 06-07 were looking bad (thought it was going to be 25 million deficit)
• Changes in certain parts of the plan, in addition to overall costs trending down nationwide, led to an outlook of $7 million in May
• Turns out it was even better than that, and turned into a $12-14 million gain, so that reserves funding was not needed.
• Only changes to plan were the co-pays of the prescriptions.
• In January, SWIAC will look at the options of changes available, and will decide what changes to the health plans will need to be made, in order to keep reserves funding, and the changes gradual to the plan, for future fiscal health.
• This downward costs trend is keeping the out of pocket costs down for at least a few more years.
• Anticipation that the Legislature is not going to fund for the health care costs actual percentage increases (anywhere from 5-7% up to 10-12% last year).
• We are currently on the downside of the cost trend, but know it will swing up again.
• Must adjust plans to make sure we are ready for the next upswing. Especially looking at adjusting medical co-pays, as they have not been adjusted for many years.
• Communication with employees about how and why the plans are adjusted, where the costs come from, where the money goes.

Next SWIAC meeting is in January.

If you have a FLEX account, use it, because the money that is left in the account is then used to pay administration cost. You do not get it back.

If you feel that you are being charged wrongly for your deductible. Please contact HRS's Kelly Lomasney or Jim McElroy, contact Med Co and let us know. We are keeping track of this problem and are working to get it resolved. People are getting their money back so please do report it.

Tommy Downey stated that Wal-Mart offers they discount prescription plan.

Our Co-pay should not change again until 2011.

If you have any questions please inform the Insurance Committee and we will answer it or put you in contact who can.

Chair introduces Janice Hejl for the Grievance Committee

Janice Hejl

Dispute Resolution Survey update. They are still working on compiling the data and hope to have more info before the break.

Plans to research the % of complete /not complete grievances that reach the VP level.

Issue 2006-13: Employee Relation Procedure

The Grievance process flow-chart is confusing and we plan to change it to a bulletin list.

Issue 2007-10: Staff Work Climate Survey is not a copyrighted issue. Since it is not a copyrighted issue we decided not to look into the cost of an outside entity doing the survey for us. However, if it is decided at a later date we need to we will look into to it at that time.

KUT Radio’s John Hanson helped put together and distribute an internal survey for the School of Social Work. Perhaps we can use them when we get to this step or use them for information.

We voted to validate and more forward creating a Staff Work Climate Survey and using the faculty survey as a model.

Chair thanks Janice and commends them for all the work that they put into this survey.

CHAIR

Julien Cater has agreed that they could explain things better concerning the DRO and there is a needed for the Employee to know what their rights are and how they go about them.

Another issue bought up recently was over taking a pay-cut or being laid-off. HRS looks at it this way, if they take the pay-cut they don’t have a break in employment and therefore, do not lose any benefits. Otherwise, they could get laid off and apply for the position once posted at a lower rate of pay.

Q: Emil Kresl 142; Is the work load going to be the same? ‘Cause they cant hire them at a lower rate if the work load is the same.

A: I honestly don’t know about that. The University has a trend of not filling vacancies, and I’m worried about what to stop them from doing this to all of us.

Q: Sharon Bernard 220; As far as the cut in pay it would depend on the funding source, there just seems to be a better why to go about this.

A; You right these are things to think about. I don’t believe that this was soft money as far as I’m aware. Then there is the subject of outsourcing that seems to be another trend across campus. If anyone knows of any other situation like this happening please inform the Executive Committee so we can track these issues.

Chair Brings Eric Patkowski of the By-Laws Committee to read the By-Laws changes (we can not vote on them but the reading is permitted in the By-Laws)

Eric Patkowski

Reads the changes to the By-Laws Sect. III, Sect. VIII and Sect. IV(handouts)

If you have any input on these please contact the By-Laws Committee before the next meeting

CHAIR

States that in revamping the committees we are trying to make sure we have quorums and more participation.

Chair introduces Lisa Gentry

Lisa Gentry

Thanks Danielle and the Issue Committee for all the work they do cause we had no work until they gave us some

2004-7: To make sure that university employees are in compliance with State and Federal laws for time reporting polices.

There is a section of HRS that takes care of these issues and we feel that since this position in HRS exist, we do not need to create another one. Therefore, we are looking to close this issue with no further action.

2004-14: To update the Separation Form make it available online using UT EID. This will not be online anytime soon but could be. We will follow up on this to see, but since this is part of Position Management we decided to close it.

2006-6: Training Modules - We don’t make the laws that decide these choices but our State Congress does. The reason why if even if a topic is not part of your job you need to take that particular part of the Compliance training is you may see someone else doing it and this takes the responsibility off the university. Move to close this at the next meeting

2005-22: Outsourcing - We have asked Julien Carter twice to give us information on the impact of the university that outsourcing has and we have not heard back from him. We have suggestion such as Define Training.

Erin: We have talked with Julien about this yesterday and he is aware that this is an issue and is willing to work with us on it but that there has been nothing cemented. It has been recommended that there be some type of training for managers. Julien has approached Judy Ashcroft from Continuing Ed. about setting up certificate courses. The only hitch was that your department would have to pay for it. So you would have to ask your supervisor to take the class and it is about $130 per class and you have to take 6 classes to complete this. Julien stated that HRS doesn’t do staff training and that is where this stalls out.

Lisa: I worked two employees that did not have Define Training and it slowed them down in their position to the point that they both quit.

We feel that we need to pursue this issue.

Erin: We will try to schedule a meeting with Julien, your committee and the Executives to discuss this matter and see if we can’t resolve this issue.

2005-19:Travel Policies - Get more information out to employees about cash advance and the availability of the Diners Club Card that you also could use. Discuss with whoever handles you traveling to process you request early so there is less out of pocket cost.

Get more information online about how to get cash advances and who to contact in the office of accounting to help you in this process.

2004-2: Nomination Notices Regarding Staff Excellence Awards (the university not Departmental awards) - We feel that there should be a letter put into your records stating that you were nominated. Recommend to write a letter to HRS to have the award nomination placed in the personnel file of those nominated.

2004-1: Revise Employee Evaluation Process - Would like to see annual evaluations of supervisor 360 evaluations. Create an Ad Hoc Committee due to the fact there are several evaluation issues.

2006-9: Allow Employees to Add Letters to Their Personnel Files to Which May Contain Detailed Information About an Issue or if They Disagree with an Evaluation - Would like to combine this with Issues 2004-1 and handled with the Ad Hoc Committee. Some departments already do this and we would like to see it done system wide.

Erin: Danielle has expressed interest in forming an Ad Hoc Committee to handle Evaluation in the past and I feel we should send out an Email to see who would like to be on this Committee

Would we open this up to more people then just UTSC members?

2003-19: Limited Expansion of the Sick Leave Pool Uses - To allow the expansion of access to the pool beyond the reasons allowed currently. This would allow things such as recovery from surgeries to heal that may otherwise force you to take a leave without pay. Policy change is set by the legislators and therefore would have to be done by them. Julien Carter has addressed this Issue through a memo stating that the Sick Leave Pool is meant for catastrophic illness or injury and any expansion would be in violation of State Law.

2004-4: Changes to Code 1000 Jobs to Give Clearer Description between Code 1000 vs. Classified Staff. - Improve the job security for Code 1000 employees. This issue was investigated in 2004 but never closed. Julien Carter also responded to this in a memo stating that one way is to have the terms of employment outline in the offer letter. Although HRS does not have a requirement standard to such a need they do provide templates for such offers.

This came up at the last meeting we had with Julien. He is aware of this problem and he is trying to stop the over use. He is trying to work with to standardize the hiring of Code 1000, because many of new employees could be Classified Staff.

Q: Linda Breining; How does this differ from At Will?

A: Erin; Employee Advisory Committee reviewed the model police that holds the At Will wording and passed it, we then meet with Julien to discuss some of our issues we have concerning it. He stated that since we are State Employees we have always been At Will. Our question was well some times we are State Employees and sometimes we are Higher Education Employees and this seems to flip-flop (at will) whenever they want rules to apply. We have no straight answer.

2005-15: Annual Staff Reappointment Training Issues - To set deadlines for reappointments to prevent insurance gaps and timesheet inaccuracies during reappointment times. The Board of Regents By-Laws state that every employee has to be reinstated yearly. They are trying to automate the rollover for Classified Staff, but it is much more complicated for Ad Mins. and Professional Staff.

During the meeting yesterday with Julien he stated he is working on this matter. He has already cut the Blackout period this next year by streamlining many procedures, and that there is and emergency procedure to get covered if something were to happen during this time.

CHAIR

This has been a very productive meeting and thank you everyone for coming. Next month is up in the air to where we are meeting because the President wants the room we reserved.

Motion to adjourn
Motion seconded
Motion past

Meeting adjourned at 3:25 p.m.

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