University of Georgia Staff Council

UGA Staff Council Meeting Minutes

October 6, 2004

A quorum being present, President Bob Ratajczak called the meeting to order at 2:25 p.m.

Roll Call: Attendance sheet attached.

Also Present: Becky Vaughn

Old Business

Minutes from September 1, 2004 were accepted with grammatical changes.

Staff Council Committee Reports

Health and Safety – Laura Alfonso

Needs and Concern – Brice reported on several issues he addressed this month: He sent a letter to Andy Brantley concerning employees' home addresses being set as default for publication. Andy Brantley responded to Brice that this is the last year employees will choose between published or un-published home address and phone number. Beginning with directory updates in August 2005, the choice in place from the previous year will be the default and will not change unless the employee changes it. In 2005 the entire directory update process will be handled online. Also, an individual asked why more computer companies were not involved in the Human Resources “UGA Extras” page. Brice corresponded with HR and was told that IBM was the only company who responded to HR's invitation to be included. HR staff will be sending out another request to companies soon.

Brice reported on a parking permit situation that he has not as yet tackled. President Ratajczak suggested it may be appropriate to hand the issue over to Laura and Melinda (Parking Task Force) to handle.

On shared leave, an employee wanted clarification on the procedure for leave donated that is not used. Brice and Margot stated the leave is returned to donors on a first donated, first returned basis.

There are concerns on distribution of football tickets. This year they were sent out by UPS to home addresses with recipient signature required. Most employees were at work at the time of delivery. The discussion was to send an email, call, or write a letter to the Athletics Department and express concerns.

Communications : - Bonnie Norwood reported they met by email and basically discussed the newsletter.

Legislative – Sandy Smith reported that they met over email and worked on the legislative questionnaire to be mailed out. The questionnaire will be mailed by October 8, with a possible turn-around time of 6 or 7 working days. Tallied responses will be sent to the UGA Staff Council Representative listserv and posted on the Staff Council website.

Pay & Classification – Barbara Galvond reported they will be doing a comparative analysis of the systems of different colleges and universities.

Special Committees:

Parking & Transportation – Melinda Pethel reported they had representatives from graduate housing with concerns of overflow commuters parking in their lots and concerns for the safety of their children because of speeders. The commuters are there temporarily, and there are several lots opening up in the next few weeks that should take care of it. The University police department will have radars posted at graduate housing and will ticket speeders. She stated that the actual parking spaces available on campus number a little over 17,000, not even close to the number of people working on campus. Parking Services is to be commended for their management of parking issues.

Strategic Planning Committee – Brenda Keen reported they will probably be meeting weekly to review academic unit 5-year plans. They will have a budgetary meeting with the Provost and a preliminary meeting on how these plans are going to work within the next month.

President Ratajczak stated that at the University Council meeting the facilities committee and the student affairs committee had no report.

Parking and Appeals – Robin Ansley reported that some lots have designated spill-over areas and we should take advantage of it when warranted. She also stated that if you need to park somewhere other than your assigned lot to make deliveries etc. you should call Parking Services and let them know, and they will not ticket you.

New Business

President's Report

President Ratajczak reported on meeting with President Adams about budget. As always, no concrete numbers are known, but President Adams gave a draft of the proposed cuts if things fall into place as hoped. A decision on the mid-year tuition increase is expected by the Regents on October 12 th . UGA is facing a $12.8 million budget cut. A 10% tuition increase would bring in $4.5 million. He has been lobbying the Regents and Legislature for it. He said the only major opposition he's received is from Lieutenant Governor Taylor who is very much opposed.

If the tuition increase goes through, there would be an average of a 1.53% decrease to the UGA units (not as bad as they were thinking).

Best case/worst case scenario for staff layoffs as a result of a 1.53% cut were not known. The deans and directors have been informed to make decisions based on program priority and were to submit budget plans by September 27 th . He also said that although this budget cut would result in some job eliminations, there are a very high number of unfilled staff positions currently and that these most likely will be the lines cut.

We (staff) are now in a waiting game to see what Regents, Deans, and Directors decide over the next few weeks. He said the administration is open to ideas of how and where to save money, so if you have any ideas, please send them to the Staff Council Executive Committee so that a list can be put together at the next Executive Committee meeting.

Report on University Council meeting – September 23, 2004

The Staff Council letter requesting additional representation on University Council delivered by Paul in spring of 2004 was entered into record from the Committee on Statues, Bylaws and Committees. There is no stated date for discussion on it. Before discussion in University Council committees, Paul would like more information to back up our argument including examples of other institutions that have more staff representation.

Paul suggested developing contingency plans offering a few options to the University Council on how many Staff Council representatives would be fair. We want to obtain the highest level of representation, but don't want the request dismissed as extreme. We want to make sure the staff representatives we request will be committed to serve.

The faculty Benefits Committee talked about continuing research on how other institutions handle campus childcare. They also talked about pay equity, and benefit issue problems. Since Staff Council has so many issues of concern in common with this committee it might be helpful to get staff representation on the committee – maybe even change the name to include “staff”.

The rest of the meeting involved some lively debate about two items, the formation of a new college of Public Health and the deactivation of a number of majors. Faculties were concerned about the loss of faculty positions in their own areas to fill the new positions and the start up cost. The administration said that the initial start up cost will be minimal and the formation of the college will bring in more NIH money. In regards to the deactivation of majors, the BOR wants majors with small enrollments shut down, but many people brought up the point that it leads to almost no savings because the graduate programs, the research professors, and the resources are already in place so the undergraduate major component is basically an added cost free benefit.

President Ratajczak will be sending a list of different additional questions to President Adams (from the meeting the Executive Committee had with him August 26 th ) over the next week, list not finalized yet.

President Ratajczak spoke up of areas with missing or open representative slots (Public Service and Finance & Administration). Brenda Keen suggested writing to Hank Huckaby about Finance & Administration participation on Staff Council. Mike Moravek stated that he will be meeting with Ralph Johnson about this problem. Mike also stated that he made up a listserv to email everyone in his own department requesting participation.

The agenda for the October 7, 2004 University Council Executive Committee Meeting is now available for review at: http://uc.reg.uga.edu/uc.nsf/htmjl/ecagendas .

Julie Dingus will fill in for President Ratajczak at the October 7 University Council Executive Committee Meeting as he will be out of town. There are no major staff related items on this month's agenda.

The university was very proud that they were listed as the 20 th best Public University in the US. President Ratajczak would like to use this accomplishment to examine a number of different questions regarding staff involvement and treatment. He would also like to have a joint research effort from three committees regarding how the top 19 Universities handle business. The main topics he would like information are:

What involvement does “staff” have in University governance (Needs and Concerns Committee). The reason for this is that we want to increase our membership on the University Council.

What are the employee benefit packages at these institutions? (Health & Safety AND Needs & Concerns Committee)

What are staffs salaries like for typical staff jobs? (Pay & Classification Committee)

Bonnie raised the question about a parking permit increase. Brenda Keen stated that when it was raised the last time, they guaranteed that it would be three years before another increase; this is year three – a possible raise in 2006.

Next Executive Committee Meeting – October 20, 2004 at 11:00 a.m. in Staff Council Office.

Next Staff Council Meeting – November 3, 2004 at 2:15 p.m. in Student Learning Center room 350.

A motion was made, seconded, and passed and the meeting was adjourned at 3:13 p.m.

Respectfully Submitted

Geraldine (Geri) McGuire

Recording Secretary

UGA Staff Council Roll

2004-2005

Meeting Date: October 6, 2004