THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA

STAFF SENATE

(NORMAN CAMPUS)

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Chair Betty Love called the meeting to order at 1:30 p.m. in the Sooner 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; Cheryl Barton, Karen Stark, David Houck, Cindy Goode, Robert Murphy, Kim Haddad, Ben Stapp, Troy Schmidt, David Kizer; Informational Staff Association: Kevin Jarnagin, Brook Barnes-Weber; Elaine Bradshaw, Annette Schwiebert; Organizational Staff Council: Linda McCarty, Cathy Brister; Kristi Wright; Kathy Gross; Jannie Porter; Matt Berry; Administrative Staff Council: Sue-Anna Miller, Rennie Cook

Representatives absent — Hourly Employees Council: Patsy Montoya; Informational Staff Association: Lisa Bowles; Debi Gentis; Organizational Staff Council: none; Administrative Staff Council: none

Guests present — Nick Kelly, Human Resources; Lezlie Pilkington, Administrative Affairs; Susan Cates, Awards Committee Chair; Susan Grossman, Communications Committee Chair; Dan Hough, OU Staff Week Committee Chair; James Tyree, The Oklahoman

BENEFITS UPDATE BY NICK KELLY, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, HUMAN RESOURCES

Chair Betty Love introduced and welcomed guest speaker Nick Kelly. Nick updated the group on the upcoming benefits enrollment that will take place between October 30^th and November 10^th. He said the Norman campus would be trying out online enrollment for the first time. He said online enrollment would not be mandatory the first year. The enrollment package will be a set of online enrollment instructions. The benefits guide will also be online, plus a limited number will be printed for new employees and it will be available if someone needs a hard copy and requests one. Nick said they understood that everyone would not have access to a computer and some might have problems enrolling online. They will have rooms on campus set up with enrollment assistance available.

Nick said the University renewed with Aetna. He said the deductible would increase from $300 to $500 for an individual and from $600 to $1,000 for a family. Out of pocket maximums went up correspondingly. Without these increases, Aetna’s increase would have been 18%. The University had budgeted for 12%. With the deductibles in place, the total increase was about 11.2%. The change was made reluctantly, but it was necessary to keep things within the budget. For comparison purposes, Nick said the State’s plan came in with a 30% increase. The State was able to increase their deductibles in the same manner and got their increase down to 18%. Comparatively speaking, he said dependent rates on the State plan would cost $2 million more over what our employees would pay on the Aetna plan.

Nick said our dental rates would go up 11% across the board. Some changes have been made to the dollar amount increments that an individual can purchase for AD&D insurance. Anyone can now purchase up to $250,000. Another change affected the benefits level in relation to an individual’s FTE. Nick said the change would affect only a few people. He reminded everyone to check their life insurance beneficiaries and keep that information current. The beneficiaries for life insurance and AD&D are online so people can easily update that information. Betty thanked Nick for meeting with the group.

INTRODUCTIONS

Betty introduced each of the Executive Committee members: In addition to herself, serving are: Beth Gatewood, Chair-Elect; Joan Koos, Immediate Past Chair; Chris McNabb, Recording Secretary; Ed Fontaine, Hourly Employees Council; Sue Anna Miller, Administrative Staff Council; Kevin Jarnagin, Informational Staff Association; Linda McCarty, Organizational Staff Council; and Barbara Perry, Staff Senate Office. Although not a member of the Executive Committee, she also introduced Shanika Bivines, Administrative Assistant in the Staff Senate Office.

CHAIR’S COMMUNICATIONS

Betty said she visited with Vice President for Executive and Administrative Affairs Nick Hathaway recently. She said they discussed health insurance and the resolution that was sent from Staff Senate opposing the proposal that had been discussed this past spring and summer that allowed for staff and faculty to pay a portion of their insurance premiums so dependent coverage costs could be decreased. Nick said it was a very important issue and they would try to look for other ways to reduce the costs for dependent coverage. Betty said they discussed raises and looked at the differences between faculty and staff raises. She commented that they were very close, within fractions of percentage points. A member asked if that included the Foundation grant. Betty did not have the answer to that question. She had been told that the grant raise for faculty was not across the board, but was going to certain areas that have been neglected or to areas that needed to be raised up to be more competitive. Another member asked why the raises at the Health Sciences Center were retroactive to July 1, when the raises here on the Norman campus will be effective October 1. Betty said she would bring that up with Nick at their next meeting.

ACCEPTANCE OF MINUTES OF JULY 19, 2006

On a motion by Robert Murphy, the minutes of the July 19, 2006, minutes were accepted as written.

OTHER COMMUNICATIONS

Hourly Employees Council:  President Ed Fontaine reported that HEC met on September 13^th and welcomed their new members. All of their committee vacancies were filled and the group is looking forward to a productive year.

Informational Staff Association:  President Kevin Jarnagin reported that he was unable to attend the first meeting. Vice President Brook Barnes Weber conducted that meeting held on September 6. Brook said one of the first items of business was to reschedule the meeting times to 12:30 so Kevin could conduct future meetings! Nick Keyes from Information Technology was their guest speaker and he spoke about computer security issues. October’s meeting will be held at the Law Center.

Organizational Staff Council:  President Linda McCarty reported that OSC held a pizza party on September 7. The group discussed topics and tours for the upcoming year, the Foundation grant that provided raises for faculty, and Staff Senate’s 35^th Anniversary celebration. Linda announced that former OSC President Tina Ledgerwood had received Housing and Food Service’s Employee of the Year Award.

Administrative Staff Council: President Sue-Anna Miller reported that ASC met on September 11. Nick Kelly updated the group on benefits, and the group discussed Staff Senate’s 35^th Anniversary and made plans for ASC’s holiday family.

Awards Committee: Chair Susan Cates said the Awards Committee met on September 12. The committee discussed retiree gifts and made committee assignments.

Communications Committee: Chair Susan Grossman said the Communications Committee had met earlier that morning. Officers were elected and the group decided it would continue with the Townhall meeting featuring President Boren next spring if possible. Susan said the committee had investigated doing an events calendar last year. She reported that an updated calendar was now available thru hub@ou.edu so that project would no longer be pursued.

OU Staff Week Committee: Chair Dan Hough reported that the Staff Week Committee would meet on Monday. From the survey that was conducted last spring, Dan plans to prepare a report for each event and send it to the each of the subcommittees that run the event.

Ad Hoc Committee on Staff Senate’s 35^th Anniversary: Chair Linda McCarty said the group met that morning. The celebration will be held on November 9^th at 2:00 in Beaird Lounge. A gift will be presented to the University to mark the event. Food, drinks and door prizes will be part of the celebration as well, and there will be a lot of freebees and t-shirts. Linda said they would like staff to become more aware of Staff Senate and would like each of the groups to have a table set up so they could inform people about their individual member group. Staff Senate chairs from the past five years will be invited and they will give a summary of what happened the year they were chair.

CORRESPONDENCE

Response from President Boren regarding health care resolution: President Boren’s response to the resolution was linked to the September agenda.

REPORTS

The following reports were linked to the September agenda:

Staff Senate Foundation account report.

Minutes of Employee Benefits Committee meeting of June 29, 2006, and August 3, 2006.

OLD BUSINESS

Consideration of statement of support for concept of Tulsa Staff Senate: Betty explained that Tulsa’s staff had always been represented and participated in Staff Senate either through the HSC Staff Senate or the Norman Campus Staff Senate. She said the Tulsa campus was thinking about creating its own separate group. [Additional information on this topic was included in July’s minutes.] Toward the end of the July meeting, a member suggested that we prepare a statement of support for the new Tulsa Staff Senate. Robert Murphy made a motion to support the creation of a separate Tulsa Staff Senate. The motion was seconded and passed unanimously on a show of hands. Betty said our show of support would be conveyed to the Tulsa campus.

NEW BUSINESS

Approval of recommended nomination to Information Technology Council: This item was linked to the September agenda. The Committee on Committees was recommending Jeff Boles to fill the remainder of a 2005-2008 term on the ITC due to a resignation. Matt Berry made a motion to approve Jeff Boles’ nomination. The motion was seconded and passed on a show of hands.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Betty announced that Hornets Basketball was offering the University of Oklahoma discount tickets for selected games. Tickets will be $22 for upper level and $50 for lower level seats. A flyer with contact information was distributed.

Betty announced that the University Women’s Association was extending an invitation to University women to attend the organizations fall registration event on October 1 from 2:00 to 4:00 at the new Weather Center. For more information, contact Katie Pursley.

Betty asked members to be aware that meeting locations for Senate meetings would vary throughout the year. The October and November meetings will be held in the Presidents Room.

MISCELLANEOUS

A member asked why retirees are not able to use the medical reimbursement accounts (flexible spending accounts) like other University employees. Sue Anna Miller volunteered to check into the situation.

ADJOURNMENT

As there was no further business, the meeting adjourned at 2:10 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Barbara Perry

Administrative Coordinator

Chris McNabb

Recording Secretary