THE
UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
STAFF
SENATE
(NORMAN
CAMPUS)
Wednesday,
May 16, 2007
Chair Betty Love called the meeting
to order at 1:31 p.m. in the Scholars Room of the Oklahoma Memorial Union.
Officers present —
Betty Love, Chair; Beth Gatewood, Chair-Elect; Joan Koos, Immediate Past Chair;
Chris McNabb, Recording Secretary
Staff present — Barbara
Perry, Administrative Coordinator; Shanika Bivines, Administrative Assistant
Representatives present —
Hourly Employees Council: Ed Fontaine, Diana Fitzpatrick, Karen Stark, Cheryl
Barton, David Houck, Patsy Montoya, David Kizer, Kim Haddad, Troy Schmidt,
Robert Murphy; Informational Staff Association: Elaine Bradshaw; Organizational
Staff Council: Linda McCarty, Cathy Brister, Kathy Gross, Winona Bark, Matt
Berry; Administrative Staff Council: Sue-Anna Miller, Rennie Cook
Representatives absent — Hourly
Employees Council: Cindy Goode, Ben Stapp; Informational Staff Association:
Kevin Jarnagin, Brook Barnes-Weber, Lisa Bowles, Debi Gentis, one vacancy;
Organizational Staff Council: Jannie Porter; Administrative Staff
Council: none
Guests present — Dan
Hough, OU Staff Week Committee Chair; Cathy Trujillo, Personnel Policies
Committee Chair; Debbie Copp, Employment Benefits Committee; Nancy Matthews,
Employment Benefits Committee; Lezlie Pilkington, Administrative Affairs; Nick
Kelly, Human Resources
CHAIRŐS COMMUNICATIONS
Betty reported on her
meeting with Vice President for Executive and Administrative Affairs Nick
Hathaway. She said the main topic
of discussion was the PresidentŐs open forum held in early May. She said several people from Staff
Senate were in attendance. Betty
said the President made it known that he hopes to give a 3% across-the-board
salary increase for faculty and staff. Betty said she and Nick talked about the success of the Staff
Week events and briefly about the healthcare committee.
Betty said she had
received many compliments from staff participating in Staff Week, including the
coaches that took part in the activities this year. She thanked the coaches who scooped ice cream, Coach
Santiago, Coach Evans and Lori Kemmet, and thanked Staff Week Committee Chair
Dan Hough and each of the individual groups for their events. She said she realized how much planning
and effort went into the preparation for such an event. She thought this yearŐs event was much
better from a customerŐs point of view.
ACCEPTANCE OF MINUTES OF
MAY 16, 2007
On motion by Matt Berry, the minutes of the May
16, 2007, meeting were accepted as written.
OTHER
COMMUNICATIONS
Administrative Staff Council: President Sue-Anna Miller reported that
the ASC met on May 14 and elected officers for the upcoming year. Sue-Anna will continue as president for
one more year, Robbie Wahnee will be Vice President, Johnnie-Margaret McConnell
will serve as Secretary, and Mike Montgomery will serve as ASC proxy. The group discussed Staff Week and
decided not to have a food fair next year, but will have a similar event
– details to be announced later.
Organizational Staff Council: President Linda
McCarty reported that OSC met on May 3rd and discussed bingo. They discussed their hot dog sales and
prize distribution and talked about getting a hand stamp so people who win can
have their hand stamped and continue playing (they would not be able to win
again, but could play the game).
The group also discussed the merit award nomination form and drafted a
memo with suggested revisions to send to the Awards Committee. Some vacant council positions were
filled.
Hourly Employees Council: President
Ed Fontaine reported that HEC met on May 9th and discussed their ice
cream social. Ed thanked the staff
of Food Services, Dave Annis, Frank Henry and Kevin Barker. Ed said their involvement made things
go much smoother. At their meeting
on the 9th, Linda Smith, Chair of the Extended Sick Leave Subcommittee of
Personnel Policies Committee, spoke to the group and answered questions on the
subject. New officers were
elected. David Houck will be
President Designate and Robert Murphy will be Secretary/Treasurer.
Informational Staff Association: In the
absence of ISA members, Administrative Coordinator Barbara Perry reported that
the ISA had met on May 2nd and held a pizza luncheon to honor their
merit award winners. The group
elected officers. Anna Love will
become ISA President next year.
The group voted to change their meeting time back to 11:30 rather than
12:30 for the upcoming year.
Members discussed a successful art show and felt it went very well. ISA is considering looking at the
subject of tuition waivers.
OU Staff Week Committee: Staff Week Committee Chair Dan Hough
thanked all of the members of his committee and the member groups for their
participation and help. He said he
hoped everyone had a chance to attend some of the events. He gave attendance numbers: morning bingo, 350; afternoon, 200;
health fair 900, 25 people gave blood and 788 burgers with given away; Awards
Ceremony, 600; Art Show, 250; ice cream social and craft fair, 1,000; 445
tickets sold for food fair. Dan
said the committee tried to change a few things this year in response to the
survey that was done a year ago.
He reported that a good change had come about from the University
regarding IRS reporting regulations in that now we only have to report prizes
that are worth more than $100 [and gift certificates]. Dan said the prize distribution went
very well this year. He said the
theme and logo were very popular, and 759 t-shirts were sold during the regular
sales event, and during a second sales campaign, 235 shirts were sold. Melanie Wilburn was elected to Chair
the Staff Week Committee next year.
Dan encouraged people to join the next yearŐs committee.
Personnel Policies Committee: Chair Cathy Trujillo said the PPC met on April
30. She said a subcommittee is
working on an extended sick leave policy and another subcommittee is
researching and addressing a proposal on the staff raise pool issue. Betty asked if the PPC had invited
someone from Human Resources to speak to the group on the issues. Cathy said they have.
REPORTS
The
following reports were linked to the May agenda:
Staff Senate
Foundation account report.
Reports from
various University and Campus Councils, Committees and Boards.
Minutes of
Employment Benefits Committee meeting of March 15, 2007.
Debbie Copp
mentioned that the April EBC meeting had taken place and she talked about that
as well. She said she assumed
everyone had received the letter from the President [regarding the UniversityŐs
healthcare review]. She said the
OTRS cap, which is coming off July 1, was discussed. She said if you havenŐt received a letter saying itŐs going
to affect you, then it will not have any impact on your situation. Catastrophic insurance was
discussed. Some employees had
asked if it could be offered as part of our University insurance package for
families. Some of our families
have gone to outside insurance companies and purchased this type of insurance. However, if you use it, you may
not be allowed to renew it. The
theory is that if the university could offer it as part of our healthcare
insurance, our employees could purchase it for their families (at a much lower
cost because you are insuring yourself against a worst case scenario only). Our employees would be part of a group
and have protection against being canceled. Julius Hilburn said it could be looked at. Also discussed: there doesnŐt seem to
be a lot of incentive for dentists to join our dental programs in the OKC metro
area because they are able to stay busy enough and not be a part of any
insurance plan.
Update from Joan Koos
on Contribution Strategy and Insurance Option Committee: Joan said she was a bit concerned when she first
learned she was going to be on this committee. But after the first three meetings, she said she was
enjoying being on the committee.
She said the committee had come up with some really good ideas and
interesting issues. Their goal is
to do the best for the whole University.
Joan read the charge the committee had established: To ensure that OU employees have access
to affordable healthcare as compared to programs offered by our peer
institutions. Joan said they had
discussed many different kinds of issues:
the cost of healthcare, whether to require the employee to share in the
burden of cost, how can we help with dependent care, and whether to investigate
catastrophic insurance. Joan said
the comments they are receiving are very constructive. She said it was her understanding that
they would be making recommendations, not decisions. Betty encouraged people to be active and send in their
suggestions.
MISCELLANEOUS
Budget Council letter
to President Boren: The letter was linked to the
agenda. Betty remarked that she
appreciated the Budget Council for their efforts. However, she felt compelled
to point out that based on calls she had received, she did not get the sense
that staff felt last year was a large salary program. [See second
paragraph of Budget Council Letter: ÉŇConversely, the rather large salary
program for FY2007 was seen as a positive boost of faculty and staff morale all
over campus.Ó] Betty said while it
may have been a large salary program for 2007 for faculty with the money from
the Foundation that was given for the faculty raise program, she said she knew
staff members who were concerned and felt very slighted because there was not a
comparable salary program for staff.
ADJOURNMENT
As there was
no further business, the meeting adjourned at 2:00 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Barbara
Perry
Administrative Coordinator
Chris McNabb
Recording Secretary