Executive Staff Council meeting with Pres. Adams on 5/15/2007

Staff Council: We appreciate the administration’s efforts in addressing the needs of low wage earners at UGA. We also applaud efforts to address salary compression for faculty. When will we see the same initiative for staff salary compression?

Adams: Compression and low wages are also an issue of the labor market for entire city of Athens. We have brought low wages up in recent years from 12.5k to 20k and now we are hearing from Athens business owners who are having a difficult time doing the same.

As far as staff compression this year; staff who earn between 20k and 32k (approximately) will be most affected by compression.

S.C. : We submitted a proposal for a new staff position, what is the status of that request?

A: We can’t do it in this year’s budget- the only new positions for this year are security positions and faculty from the Savannah River Ecology Lab (SREL) in order to keep from laying off tenured faculty.

S.C. What about the staff at the SREL?

A: We will treat them in a similar way to the layoffs in 2003. The staff being paid from soft money will be the first in line for other UGA positions. There should be enough support positions on campus for them to fill. Human Resources will be traveling to Savannah tomorrow to speak to the staff there. The paper hasn’t been completely accurate about the SREL closing. We have worked to keep it open for about 5 years now and spoke to everyone that might help us but we could not work it out. It is a loss.

S.C.: We understand that Louie Wyatt at Human Resources will be retiring soon and his position will be eliminated, is this correct? This has been an important position for retiring staff to coach and navigate the teachers’ retirement system.

A: I haven’t heard about this but I will find out.

SC: Do you foresee the expansion of child-care options for UGA employees?

A: We tried to buy the YMCO building but that fell through. That aside, staff and faculty have not expressed an overwhelming interest in this kind of service from UGA. Also, a child-care facility must be able to sustain itself. We can’t take money from academic programs for this.

S.C.: Can you tell us the future of our health insurance’s Indemnity Plan?

A: We will evaluate the experience of each plan. In January we will find out about the budget for ’08-09 but I have not heard of any major changes being discussed. We wanted coverage for staff that travel out of state to be included. The increase for employers is almost 11 million.

Health care and utility costs have increased significantly. The university alone has an electric bill that is now over $1 million a month.

S.C.: Should we distribute general information about how staff can help with energy costs?

A: Yes you all can really help us with this. We will send Staff Council the energy usage report draft. As you know we are already using bio-fuel in many of our buses and plan to change over completely. Even though that won’t save us money, it will be better for the environment.

S.C.: Regarding the cost of the Indemnity heath insurance plan, many low income staff have to use this plan in order to get the treatment they need from specific doctors not covered in other plans. With some low income staff basically working for the Indemnity insurance plan, as its premiums continue to increase these staff will either be forced out of their jobs or forced to change plans.

A: I hope employees who have this plan will use it judiciously. For example, if a person chooses to wait for a doctor’s appointment rather than going to the hospital [for a non-emergency issue] then that would save us all a lot of money. UGA puts in a lot of money on the employer side. There is a strong lobby to keep the Indemnity plan but I don’t think employees on the PPO and HMO plans should subsidize those on the Indemnity plan. We have kept open enrollment available to employees if they want to make changes in their health care plans. It is just impossible to determine what will happen more than 1 year into the future with this.

S.C.: Perhaps we should find out what happened to the office that was to educate staff about these services?

A: We will find out about that and mail that information.

Other issues/ remarks:

A: The funding for the pharmacy building looks good for approval.

A: The salary pool of 3% is what we have lobbied for and the deans have some % for faculty compression in particular. We also look forward to a conclusion with the Navy School in the next two weeks with funds provided for under the Health Sciences Initiative.

S.C.: Will there be an increase in the cost of parking? You predicted one last year but it didn’t happen.

A: Yes we kept that from happening but again I’m going to say there will probably be an increase this year. I prefer the $5-$10 jumps to the huge increase we had some years ago. We will start on the new parking deck next to the Tate center in the next two weeks. We may also add a deck behind the Performing Arts complex. We have heard the concerns and complaints (from our elderly patrons in particular) regarding parking for events in that area.