MINUTES UAF STAFF COUNCIL MEETING #78 Wednesday, February 7, 1996 Wood Center Ballroom I Marie Scholle called the meeting to order at 8:35 a.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: MEMBERS ABSENT: Banks, P. Ilgenfritz, L. Barr, J. Kiser, R. Barr, K. Leavy, D. Bender, L. Sowell, P. Bergeron, B. Thomas, Ma. Boatwright, S. Wilken, S. Enochs, K. Wilson, Ci. Gal, S. Gramling, D. OTHERS PRESENT: Howald, C. Bauer, T. Johnson, J. Chapman, C. Jordan, S. Freeman, J. Lowdermilk, J. Hayes, J. Matheke, G. Kastelic, P. McDaniel, D. (for Cr. Wilson) Lynch, D. McHenry, Y. (for L. Murphy) Masiak, D. Oleson, B. McGill, K. Pederson, J. White, P. Pierce, R. Plowman, C. Ritchie, E. (for D. Powell) Scholle, M. Sullivan, C. Thomas, Mi. Yates, M. B. The minutes to meeting #77 (December 1, 1995) were approved as distributed via e-mail. C. The agenda was adopted as distributed via e-mail. II President's Report - M. Scholle January 26 Board of Regents Meeting - The main topic of discussion was deferred maintenance and a priority schedule was established. Staff Alliance and Board of Regents - President Scholle and President-Elect Pierce will be in Juneau for the Staff Alliance and Board of Regents meeting. There will be a faculty, staff, and student governance leaders convocation hosted by Chancellor Lind. Meetings are scheduled with legislators and Lt. Governor Ulmer. UA System Governance Council - Marie Scholle was recently elected chair of the System Governance. She is also chair of the Staff Alliance. UAF Staff Council is well represented systemwide and the concerns of the UAF staff is being heard throughout the system. President Scholle encouraged all representative to continue to keep the lines of communication open to their constituents . Compensation Schedule - UAA staff filed a complaint that University regulation had been violated by Statewide Human Resources by their lack of governance review of changes to the compensation schedule. Geographic Differential - This item is still in committee and is not progressing. Resolution in support of having the presidents of the Faculty and Staff Alliances participate at the Full Board of Regents meetings and sit on committees. After a brief discussion a friendly amendment was made to clarify that a representative from both faculty and staff governance bodies will participate at the Full Board and committee meetings. A motion was made and seconded to approved the resolution as amended. The vote was unanimous. RESOLUTION PASSED AS AMENDED (unanimous) =============================== WHEREAS, The UAF Staff Council strongly believes that staff and faculty issues can best be communicated to the Board of Regents in person, and WHEREAS, The UAF Staff Council strongly believes that the Board of Regents would greatly benefit from having staff and faculty representation available to express staff and faculty opinions when necessary, now THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, That the UAF Staff Council strongly encourages the Board of Regents to adopt the recommendation to have a representative from both the faculty and staff governance bodies participate at the table as ex-officio members during Full Board and standing committee meetings. Open lines of communication will only further strengthen the University of Alaska system and this is the first step in the right direction. DATED THIS 7th DAY OF FEBRUARY, 1996. ********** III Guest Speakers A. Patty Kastelic, Executive Director, Statewide Human Resources A great deal of information was distributed. Thus, Patty Kastelicıs discussion follows verbatim. Basically I am; as you are well aware there is going to be a Board meeting next week on Thursday and Friday in Juneau, so I am going to just very briefly review the things on the Board agenda. There is nothing up for action on the Human Resource Committee agenda this time. Well actually that is not quite true. We inadvertently left out a paragraph that defines compensation in 04.05.01 when the August meeting occurred and the Board adopted that policy. It defines compensation as the sum of salary and benefits and that change is listed in a reference, and you can take a look at it. I think itıs non-controversial, but Iıve been wrong before. The dispute resolution policy 04.08 is once again up for review. I believe it would be very inappropriately to change processes in the middle of an academic year, so I do not believe we are in a big rush on this one. I would hope that we would have final adoption at the June meeting, allowing between now and June, to have your input as the drafts develop. Most of the changes that you see in this draft, which is included in reference in Board material and all Board material is available to you and goes up on the Net; are points of clarification. A clearer delineation between what we are calling the dispute resolution process and that process which is formal grievance. There has been a lot of confusion about that and we trying to make that clearer and more understandable and I think thatıs evident in this draft. We, as always, welcome your thoughts. I would hope that we would get to the point when we have a very close to final version by the April Board meeting. So we have until early April to incorporate your remarks. There are some outstanding issues that I donıt yet have an answer for. One of them is that Anchorage would like all attorneys banned from our internal process including grievance deliberation. In earlier remarks from the UAF body, I noted that you recommend that we put in our policy that anyone at any time could hire an attorney to be either an advisor or a representative. I see that as a major conflict. You have a couple of people who are on council at the moment who have long and hard experience with this issue in Tim (Bauer) and Karen (Enochs) and I will let them speak on this issue. We are very meticulous society and itıs become extremely problematic to do a real peer review of internal disputes when we get ourselves into a litigating environment very, very early on and I donıt have strong feelings either way, so we will continue to talk about this. The other thing is that the UAA governance groups really want freedom of information and they would like both the hearing panel recommendation and the Chancellorıs decision to be released to governance groups and the employees at large in their entirety rather than in summary. I think by the time, it has or hasnıt been that particular grievance proceeding been open and from my point-of-view, I would prefer to have the entire record available because I think we would have fewer rumors and misunderstandings about what in fact goes on. I think that concern in terms of doing that is that it would have a chilling effect on potential grievant to know that the hearing panel recommendation and the Chancellorıs decision would become more public knowledge. To me, I would say that is plenty public as it is. There is no confidentiality guarantee either in law or in fact and these things whiz around the University. Half the people really know what is going on and the other half run on rumors and so there it is again. I donıt have any real strong feelings. This is a request that comes from governance. The way that the current draft reads is it is a summary version that goes forward rather than the whole finding of the hearing panel and council and chancellorıs decision. We have put in an expedited hearing process in this version which would allow both the respondent and the grievant to elect voluntarily, and they would both have to agree, for an expedited review process that would happen very quickly after the grievance was filed and would allow an hour each side to present their case. Hopefully that would avoid 4-8 days kinds of hearings. And again, that would be voluntary, but sometimes the longer these things go on the more adversarial they are. So we put that in for your consideration. The policy 04.07 - Leaves is up for first draft reading. No change has been made to either the accrual or the division between sick and annual leave. Rather the changes you see reflect our need to comply with new federal and state guidelines concerning the family medical leave act and the ADA and separation of records, medical records from personnel records. And a proposal on how to start counting family medical leave, because you are allowed a certain amount of time and there is a difference between state and federal law. So that is what you will see and hear. You probably had not had an opportunity to read that. I again would not expect this to be adopted until June, so there is opportunity. We must be compliant with laws. So if your suggestions for change do not allow that, with all do respect, we will have go by the law. The one thing that is concern to me is that we recently had an attorney who is a specialist in university and college law relating to family medical leave, the ADA, sexual harassment and disability complaints and he was extremely concerned about our leave share program. In that, it is a very public kind of thing. I need some leave share time, I give my name and in most cases some circumstances around my reason for needing it. Originally when we talked about the leave share program and before we adopted it, there was also concern that people who were not well known, who did not have a high profile in the organization, had an opportunity to ask for leave requests. Again we may not release the reasons or the name when we do that. It may have a chilling effect on leave donations. So we might look at a way to handle that and I would be glad, when you have had a chance to review, we ought to change that. When youıve had a change to look at that, Iıd love to come back and discuss the options for that. Speaking of Rob Dustin, he also suggested that we really take a look at the process that we now have in draft between sexual harassment claims and the grievance policy. We now require you to go through a process of complaint that involves the Affirmative Action officer or designee and the UAF campus. Frequently those matters are handled by Personnel in advance of going to grievance, but they are grievable. As are ADA complaints after the ADA coordinator has made a determination. It is his view in reviewing past history that we might shorten this process. A couple of suggestions he made and they are not incorporated in the changes and he was just here last week, these are fundamental changes and we did not have time to incorporate them. We did not have time to think about, let alone draft. But his suggestion is that perhaps the specialized nature of these two kinds of areas of discrimination complaint should be handled in a slightly different way. That they could be reviewed by your Personnel Office or the affirmative action officer, then a determination of remedy be made, and that recommendation be made possibly to a 3-person panel. Then the recommendation of the panel then, in fact, are enforceable including remedies of a broad spectrum and that the 3-person panel would need to endorse either the ADA coordinator or affirmative action officers recommendations. And if the person who was filing the complaint did not feel that they were sufficient, that would be appealable to the Chancellor. So they wouldnıt go through the whole investigation and process and once again go through the whole thing again in a grievance setting. It has been very hard on complainants, as well as respondents, and there was a recent case on this campus that I believe that if that process had been in place, the eventual outcome of the complaint would have been enforced at a much, much earlier time. And would have been, Karen is nodding and knows what Iım talking about, because in the end the University did what I think what the complainant wanted all along and we were simply unable to compel it at an earlier stage. So I think that, that suggestion has some real merit but it is not reflected in this draft. We need to talk about that. And then finally in the Human Resource agenda is a discussion on the UA job evaluation project. We, the Business Council recommends that until all the job evaluations are complete, we make no salary adjustments for jobs that are just evaluated that are continuing jobs that arenıt changing but may go either up or down in the grade that they are assigned. And that we do an analysis at the completion of the project to see what adjustments are appropriate and required. When we originally drafted the language for change of pay as a result of job evaluation, we did not write that, those provisions in imagining someone simply receive a different job grade without doing a different job. A loss of pay as a result of a downgrade was intended to occur when someone had been doing a job with one responsibility and either through departmental reorganization or changes in the business environment, they are actually doing significantly less than they had been. And the increase in pay was not intended to be for people who happen just were doing the same job and happen to be at the wrong pay rate. And so we will take a look at that, the results of the whole project and see how everyone is arranged and do an analysis of pay placement and make some recommendations at the end. That is going to be suspended until the end of the project. Because weıve run into real matters of inequity and unfairness, as weıve done it job by job. So with that and I would be happy to answer questions about the job evaluation project and has Jim come to speak to you? Question: Does this mean that since weıre starting this new job evaluation project, that if you are in fact upgraded, you are not to receive a salary increase, under Regulation, 9% or nearest step. When will this be communicated to all the staff? Response: I am telling you now. I donıt know what will happen as a result of this evaluation project. I should say that the chancellors at the Chancellorıs Council meeting all agreed that they will put in place at your campus a process that if someoneıs job has truly changed, that can be documented, there will be a process in place where your supervisor can truly document that your job has truly changed and isnıt just receiving another grade because we are righting past wrongs and evaluating things that havenıt been evaluated for 10 years. They can approve a salary increase. Question: Currently, until your unit has been specifically targeted to evaluate all its job, then only jobs that have had a change in tasks and responsibility. Response: If thatıs the case, then there wonıt be any problem with that. It will take/require chancellorıs sign off. Chancellorıs have agreed that they will take the responsibility for reviewing that material and making that decision, so that someone who happens to be in a rich department just does not get the advantage of that. But yes absolutely, we do not intend to freeze people whoıs jobs have truly changed. And particularly I am not aware of a major reorganization on this campus, but on UAA, they are talking about recombining schools and colleges and there may be some jobs that change significantly but donıt require either a promotion or demotion process or a direct hire process, but that are simply jobs changing substantially and there will be provisions for that. Weıre talking about pay change as a result of just completing this project. I also want to go on record and make it very clear, we are not saying we will not adjust pay at the end of this project. Weıre going to look at everybody, ok where is everybody, where do they fall in the range, how does this relate to their years of service. Question: The only difficulty I have with that is at the end of a project, if we go to adjust pay with somebody who is a Fund 2 person, weıre unlikely not going to be able to do that unless we fund it out of our own general fund at the institute. So in other words, if we go for 6-8 months and at that end of that time through a routine evaluation we have decided that this position needed to go up a grade, weıre going to have a tough time collecting those monies from the funding agencies. We have gone retroactive pays before and for a largely Fund 2 organization, it is a major nightmare. We need to really implement pay changes as they occur so we can reflect those costs. Response: What I am saying is thatıs why weıre going to take a look at the whole project at the end, the impact, the affordability, the fairness, the equity and we will do it as a whole at the end as it is possible to do. So all those things will be taken into account. Question: Is there a target date when all these job evaluations will be completed? Response: Weıre hoping by early fall, September/October. Jim is meeting with Personnel directors on February 16. They are going to then review the scope of the project, make an assessment, the number of jobs to be done on their campus and develop a plan unit by unit that conforms and allows the units; obviously you are not going to do a grant unit in the middle of the fiscal year change. So they are going to try and give units enough warning and it may be and this has not been decided, and it may be that UAF decides to do some family group, some job groups all together. I donıt know exactly what, but it wonıt be a secret once they have made those determinations. I am sure that Jeanne Freeman will let you know and Jim is working very closely with the campuses and following the lead of the campuses ability to do this and complete this. We are trying to set realistic time frames and goals. It is clearly Vice Chancellor Riceıs intent that this occurs in a fairly short time frame. Jobs are not static, they change all the time and the quicker we can do this and put an end to this project the better it is. So we are not intending to drag this out two years. Question: How about the folks who have been evaluated in the last six months to a year? Do they in fact get increases, correct? Response: Yes. Questions: Your holding off the salary increases until a point in the future and yet if someone is hired new in that same position and I have the job evaluated as a new hire; a new hire could conceivably come in at a higher rate than someone that has been in the job an extended period of time. Response: Your absolutely right about that. At the end of this project, I would say as a given, we canıt have anyone in a job grade that is below step A. I mean, I think that is a self evident fact. We are not going to take someone who has gone from a 76 to a 78 and leave them in the middle of range 76 and not even at step A of 78. That canıt be. But we are going to take a look at the entire project before we make adjustments and those are the kinds of equity issues we absolutely have to look at because that would be manifestly unfair. And this, by the way and I say this in my narrative, has absolutely have nothing to do with your annual step increases that will start on your anniversary date effective July 1. All of those are going forward. Questions: For those people for have just gotten evaluated this year and have gotten a notification that as of July 1 they were going to go down, are they on hold or are these expected on July 1 to take a step down? Response: Everyone, up and down, is on hold. Questions: Could you please clarify that? People who just had gotten evaluated in the past year weıre talking about now, did in fact those people get increases or are they on hold as well? Response: Some have and I cannot and I regret the fact that there are some people whose jobs are exactly the same as they have been doing for two years, who may indeed already received an increase. But as a public employer, we cannot take pay away. They have made plans. I know that creates some discrepancy, but if you look at any pay grade, I can show you the pay rates of people along the pay grade, even before we started this evaluation project and when we look at the new schedule there are people who have been here two years who are in the middle of the schedule and there are people who have been here 10 years who are out at the beginning because we had no order on our pay practice. And so I agree that thatıs one more sad thing that happened that I think at the end of this there will be some firm rules in place and there will be a sense of equity when we complete the project as a whole. Question: All the people now who have been evaluated through or since Jim Kessler has come aboard are frozen until the whole project is completed? Response: We are not going to be releasing the results until we get the whole thing. And I will also tell you that it would not be fair to those being evaluated now, that we would not look at whatıs been done in the last year. We will look at whatıs been done in the last year and I am not saying that I think there is anything wrong with whatıs been done in the last year, but if at the end of the project we have the whole picture and see somebody sore thumbing out here in an 81 whose job really is comparable to a whole group of jobs at grade 79, we will pull that back in. Committees have been trained and theyıve been doing the best they can, but theyıve been doing one job at a time. They have not had the benefit of looking at all jobs that are similar in terms of knowledge, thinking, challenge, and accountability. We may have to adjust some up and some down at the end of the project that for whatever reason were evaluated at a level that is clearly out of step with the entire project once itıs completed. Question: So you are saying that people who have been evaluated in the past year could possibly be re-evaluated now under the new system. Response: Yes. Question: Iım understanding that some positions have been evaluated since Jim came on board and yet the Personnel officers will not meet until the 16th to determine this process. Was there something handed out to deans and directors at UAF that said that we were not to give salary increases? Response: It is my understanding that those evaluation results are not even being released. Question: The results are being released over the phone. Carolyn Chapman stated that the results of the evaluations since January 1, since Jim Kessler has come on board has not been released and the reasoning is that Personnel has been waiting for a response from Jim on their placement. Carolyn just received the results yesterday and this process is very vague and dissemination of information is lacking and dean and directors have not received this information. Response: The only comment Iıll say to that is your chancellor, your provost and your vice chancellor for administration have all been involved in lengthy discussions about this. This is a consensus and it is at their discretion how they are going to communicate that on this campus. These meetings have just taken place in the last week, the chancellorıs meeting was last Wednesday. So Iım not giving you old news. These are new considerations, new decisions. President Scholle stated that it seems like there is a communication problem regarding this matter. Especially since our own Personnel Office is unclear in this matter. Question: We have a set of policies and regulations in place for how we would do position evaluations. Currently, they say by committee. Are we going to be changing them? Response: Yes. Question: Are you aware that there are a couple of motions going to be presented by Staff Council later in the meeting requesting reinstatement of the committee and provide suspense times. When will the new policies and regulations be worked on? Response: I communicated to you that it was the consensus of the Business Council and I have gone on record and in writing several times on this issue that it is the consensus of the Business Council, which is your vice chancellor that we jointly hire Jim Kessler. We advertised the position, he competed for it. Itıs a rate 78 position. He was hired at step A of the schedule. There is nothing irregular about this. The position is shared financially by all of the MAUs and is paid for on a prorated basis, based on the number of staff positions that each unit has. The suggestion that we do this was made by the vice chancellors to Patty Kastelic because they believe that now that we have a Haye tool judging all jobs, there has been a real significant charge and it is only fair that everyoneıs job get evaluated in a very timely way. It was not possible for the committee nor did the vice chancellorıs believe that it was a efficient use of staff time to adjourn from their regular jobs and spend six months doing job-by-job because there is a considerable backlog. And so that is their decision. Iım the messenger, feel free to kill me. This topic can be taken up with the vice chancellor, but this is a consensus to get us through the back flow. No body has made a decision about what process we will use in the future once we get everyoneıs job current. In fact there are many jobs that are not accurately described. There are many people who do not have job descriptions that are of the detail described in the JEF and so this is our attempt to get everything squared away and straightened out in the short run. What we do from then on is open to discussion. Iıve let the job evaluation committees know this months ago, last summer. This is not a new surprise. Questions: The problem is no body knows whatıs going on. And in fact, a new person was hired and no body said to do things differently or donıt give a pay raise. There just has been no word. Response: I repeat this evaluation project was not long standing. It was just confirmed last week on Wednesday in the chancellorsı meeting. I am not keeping anything from you. This has not been a secret plot. There was no secret about Jimıs hiring. That was well publicized and well communicated last summer. The process took quite awhile and he came and I donıt remember, early December/November. There were representatives of each of the campus participated in the hiring process. So. President Scholle thanked Patty Kastelic for speaking at the meeting; and also recommended that staff representatives met with Personnel and Vice Chancellor Rice to increase the flow of communication on the evaluation project. B. Jim Kessler, Job Evaluation Coordinator, Statewide Human Resources - Did not attend the meeting. IV Governance Reports A. Faculty Senate - D. Lynch The Faculty Senate is looking closely to the proposed changes to Regents Polices. The Senate has an active committee addressing faculty and grade appeals. The dispute resolution has been carefully addressed and policies on patents and copy rights are being addressed. B. ASUAF - J. Hayes Joe Hayes is the President of ASUAF and the student Regent. Joe Hayes was thanked for recommending that a staff member serve on the Board committees. There is a 1 1/2% decrease in enrollment and a 4% decrease for the academic year. Ideas are being solicited for increasing recruiting and retention. Joe suggested that each staff member can act as an ambassador for the University. The positive aspects of the University must be communicated to the community and not dwell on the negative. This will assist with the recruiting. The media has a habit of focusing on the negative aspects. Student leaders will be lobbying the legislature while in Juneau. A tuition freeze it a high priority on the studentsı agenda. Representatives asked Regent Hayes views on the deferred maintenance funding and holding people accountable. Regent Hayes stated the Board is trying to find out who is actually held accountable. UAF has good intentions, but this item should have been brought back before the Board. The whole process needs to be looked at. Representatives asked for clarification on the 1.6% merit increase for faculty. This is not a merit increase, but a faculty compensation schedule. Staff has a separate compensation schedule. The faculty currently do not like the compensation schedule and there is talk of unionization. Vice President Redman included faculty compensation as a separate appropriation in the University operating budget. The outcome of the University budget will depend on what is approved by the legislature. V The Council took a five minute break. VI Committee Reports A. Rural Affairs - B. Oleson There was no report. The committee chair was ill and the meeting will be rescheduled. B. Information Coordinating - R. Pierce The following information was distributed as a handout for accessing legislative bills via e-mail. Open Netscape. At the location bar, type: http://www.legis.state.ak.us/ This will give you a menu of Alaska Statues, Alaska Information (such as the constitution), and Current Legislative Information. Click on the: 19th (1995-96) legislature bill tracking and information. Then click on the ³document² box. This will give you access to all the proposed bills on the 19th Legislature. You can then select a bill by number or sort alphabetically by subject. All the bills pertaining to the University are listed under the topic University. President Scholle and President-elect Pierce have a full schedule of meetings with legislators and the Lt. Governor while in Juneau. C. Staff Affairs - R. Pierce 1. Motion to approve academic calendar for 1996-97 After a brief discussion, a motion was made and seconded to approve the academic calendar for 1996-97. The motion was approved with one abstention. MOTION PASSED (1 abstention) =============== The UAF Staff Council moves to adopt the following calendar for the 1996-97 academic year for the University of Alaska Fairbanks - Fairbanks Campus with the amendment that the last day of late registration be the same as the last day of fee payment. FALL SEMESTER 1996 Labor Day Mon., Sept. 2 Orientation for New Students Mon., Sept. 2 Registration: Course Selection Tues.-Wed., Sept. 3-4 First Day of Instruction Thurs., Sept. 5 Last day of late registration & last day of fee payment Fri., Sept. 13 Thanksgiving Holiday Thurs.-Sun., Nov. 28-Dec. 1 Last Day of Instruction Fri., Dec. 13 Final Examinations Mon.-Thurs., Dec. 16-19 Campus Closed 5 p.m., Dec. 24 1996-8 a.m., Jan. 3, 1997 SPRING SEMESTER 1997 Orientation for New Students Mon.-Tues., Jan 13-14 Registration: Course Selection Tues.-Wed., Jan. 14-15 First Day of Instruction Thurs., Jan. 16 Last day of late registration & last day of fee payment Fri., Jan. 24 Spring Recess Mon.-Sun., Mar. 17-23 All Campus Day-No Classes Fri., Apr. 25 Last Day of Instruction Fri., May 2 Final Examinations Mon.-Thurs., May 5-8 Commencement Sun., May 11 EFFECTIVE: Upon Governance Coordinating Committee and Chancellorıs Approval RATIONALE: Late fees are charged beginning with the first day after fee payment ends. Refund policies will have to be changed--currently the day after fee payment ends, begins the 50% refund period. ********** 2. Motion to reinstate UAF Job Evaluation Committee After a brief discussion regarding lack of information and in light of the recent information from Patty Kastelic, Executive Director of Statewide Human Resources, a motion was made to table the motion to reinstate the job evaluation committee. The vote was unanimous. The motion to extend the moratorium on lose of pay for jobs that have been downgraded failed due to a lack of a second. The motion to establish suspense times for the evaluation process was tabled. The vote was unanimous. This entire issue on the job evaluation process was sent back to Staff Affairs for further review. MOTION TABLED (unanimous) =============== Staff Council moves that the Job Evaluation Committee at UAF be reinstated and that all UAF jobs evaluated by the system job evaluation coordinator be reviewed by the UAF Job Evaluation Committee. EFFECTIVE: Upon Chancellorıs Approval RATIONALE: This committee has functioned very well in the past. The review would provide a check on a single personıs evaluation of a large number of positions within a short time frame. ********** MOTION TABLED (unanimous) =============== The UAF Staff Council moves that procedures be put in place with suspense times to be met when a position is to be evaluated. EFFECTIVE: Upon UA Presidentıs Approval RATIONALE: Currently a position evaluation is to be accomplished by the job evaluation coordinator at Statewide. There are no established submittal procedures nor suspense times or review processes. These procedures would eliminate confusion, provide a tracking system, and speed up the process. ********** D. Elections, Membership, & Rules - L. Bender 1. Motion to confirm Staff Council Committees Representatives were asked if they would like to change committees. Michelle Thomas asked to be on Staff Training. A motion was made and seconded. The vote was unanimous. Representatives were also asked to think about the position of president-elect. If you are interested, contact Marie Scholle at FNMMS or Ron Pierce at rpierce@gi.alaska.edu. MOTION PASSED (unanimous) =============== The UAF Staff Council moves to confirm the following committee assignments: ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE RURAL AFFAIRS, Continued Tim Bauer Marie Scholle Laura Bender Sue Wilken Barb Oleson Crystal Wilson Grant Matheke Mari Yates Ron Pierce *Marie Scholle STAFF AFFAIRS Peg Banks ELECTIONS, MEMBERSHIP & RULES Jay Barr *Laura Bender Kate Barr Kim Fisher Beth Bergeron Linda Ilgenfritz Dean Gramling, Jr. Shawn Jordan JeRome Johnson Marty Thomas Ruth Kiser *Grant Matheke INFORMATION COORDINATING Lynn Murphy Sandra Boatwright Barb Oleson Kathy Gruenig Jeff Pederson J. Carter Howald Ron Pierce Deborah Mercy Cheryl Plowman *Ron Pierce Cheryl Sullivan Gabrielle Scalise Cindy Wilson RURAL AFFAIRS STAFF TRAINING Elaine Bublitz Peg Banks Dixie Emery Diane Leavy Susan Gal Julene Lowdermilk May Kenworthy Kathy McGill Dee McDaniel Darlette Powell *Barb Oleson Elizabeth Ritchie Pam Sowell Michelle Thomas EFFECTIVE: Immediately E. System Governance Council - M. Scholle Most of the issues were covered in the Presidentıs Report. There will be a convocation of all the faculty, staff, and student governance leaders in Juneau prior to the Regents meeting. F. Budget Council - T. Bauer Information regarding the University budget and implementation of recommendations from Program Assessment as of December 1995 were distributed at the meeting. The UA budget proposed by the Governor is approximately $3,000 more than last year. There will be some cost in implementing the step increases from the staff compensation schedule. At this time, the Parking Committee is not in favor of raising fees. Thus these items will have to be funded internally. Increased enrollment would assist in funding these items. One-on- one recruitment will take place shortly. VII OTHER BUSINESS A. Discussion on Staff Training - C. Chapman Carolyn Chapman stated that there has been a communication gap regarding the job evaluation process. There has been some generic job descriptions that have been evaluated and defined at UAF, such as lab technicians and lab associates at SFOS. There are generic descriptions for clerical and accounting positions. UAF was the prototype for all three campuses. The UAF Job Evaluation Committee was extremely effective and there has not been any complaints from deans and directors. Alta Crawford has been the Benefits/Training Coordinator in Personnel Services. There has been a number of significant changes in benefits and this must take a top priority. Personnel Services has realized the loss of three positions over the last two years and these positions have not been filled. Personnel Services supports training but they have had their budget slashed. A recommendation was made to have a motion come from committee requesting that the administration actively support training/development at UAF. This item was referred back to the Training Committee. VIII Comments and Questions Questions were raised as to how much of a time/money saver the current banner system is. Also what is the status of the system being fully functional and what is the cost. Most representatives concurred that the system was prematurely placed on line prior to the bugs being worked out. Staff Affairs will be looking at this matter. IX Announcements A. A handout was distributed from Karlin Itchoak, student coordinator of the Festival of Native Arts asking for assistant from staff for the 23rd Festival of Native Arts scheduled for February 22-24. If you would like to assist, contact Karlin at 474-6889/7181. Representatives also recommended contacting Jim Ruppert at 474-6605 if you would like to volunteer. X The meeting was adjourned at 10:55 a.m. Tapes of this Staff Council meeting are in the Governance Office, 312 Signersı Hall, if anyone wishes to listen to the complete tapes. Submitted by Kathy McGill, Governance Office.