THE
UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
STAFF
SENATE
(NORMAN
CAMPUS)
Wednesday,
February 21, 2007
Chair Betty Love called the meeting
to order at 1:31 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
Staff absent —
Shanika Bivines, Administrative Assistant
Representatives present —
Hourly Employees Council: Ed Fontaine, Diana Fitzpatrick, Cheryl Barton, Cindy
Goode, Karen Stark, David Houck, Patsy Montoya, Ben Stapp, Troy Schmidt, David
Kizer, Kim Haddad, Robert Murphy; Informational Staff Association: Kevin
Jarnagin, Debi Gentis, Lisa Bowles, Brook Barnes-Weber, Elaine Bradshaw; Organizational Staff
Council: Linda McCarty, Kathy Gross, Jannie Porter, Matt Berry; Administrative
Staff Council: Sue-Anna Miller, Rennie Cook
Representatives absent — Hourly
Employees Council: none; Informational Staff Association: Annette Schwiebert;
Organizational Staff Council: Cathy Brister; Administrative Staff
Council:
Guests present — Dan
Hough, OU Staff Week Committee Chair; Cathy Trujillo, Personnel Policies
Committee; Linda Smith, Personnel Policies Committee; Lezlie Pilkington,
Administrative Affairs; Debbie Copp, Employment Benefits Committee; Robert
Gonzolez, The Big Event; James Tyree, The Oklahoman
REMARKS FROM ROBERT GONZOLEZ REGARDING THE BIG
EVENT
Chair Betty Love introduced and welcomed guest
speaker Robert Gonzolez to speak on behalf of The Big Event. Robert said The Big Event is an OU
student-led and student-run community service initiative held every year. He said between 4,000 and 5,000
students volunteer for the day each year to go to 200 job sites in the Oklahoma
City/Norman area. He
encouraged staff to join the effort and get involved. This yearÕs Big Event is set for Saturday, April 14, and
will begin at 9:30 a.m.
Questions can be emailed to the bigevent@ou.edu. Applications are due before spring
break and may be dropped off in the Student Life Office, OMU 370.
CHAIRÕS COMMUNICATIONS
Betty said that Becca
Eckstein from the American Cancer Society was unable to attend. She explained that Daffodil Days is an
upcoming fundraiser for the Cancer Society.
Betty said she had met with Vice President for
Executive and Administrative Affairs Nick Hathaway on February 8. She said the Health Care Panel is being
formed and will begin meeting soon.
Betty said she had learned that the panel was formed as a result of a
request from the Employment Benefits Committee to President Boren. Betty told Nick about Staff Senate
recognizing Physical Plant for their efforts to provide safer sidewalks during
the inclement weather for students, staff and faculty at Staff SenateÕs January
meeting. Nick said it was nice to
hear the comments for the jobs that were well done. Betty conveyed to Nick that we were also very appreciative
of President Boren closing the campus during the hazardous weather.
Betty said the committee for the selection of
the PresidentÕs Trophy would meet on March 26. Staff Week shirts would be going on sale soon. Betty said the logo design was awesome
this year. She asked people to
promote the shirts. She said she
wears her Staff Week shirts when she goes on vacation and always gets asked
about them and is proud to say she works at OU. She explained that the shirt sales help raise prize money
which helps buy better prizes for Staff Week. Betty said Staff Week would have a new event this year, a
hamburger cookout.
ACCEPTANCE OF MINUTES OF
JANUARY 17, 2007
On motion by Matt Berry, the minutes of the
January 17, 2007, minutes were accepted as written.
OTHER
COMMUNICATIONS
Hourly Employees Council: President
Ed Fontaine reported that HEC met on February 14. Retirement specialist Renda Passek from Human Resources
spoke to the group and answered questions regarding retirement. The group approved the restructuring
and alignment of groups and departments for their upcoming elections. Ed said there were a lot of new
buildings on campus. He said the
Awards Selection Committee for HEC would meet soon and get started with their
selections. They have checked and
confirmed that BBQ sandwiches will be sold at their ice-cream social event
during Staff Week. Ben Stapp will
put out the next Hourglass newsletter.
Organizational Staff Council: President Linda
McCarty reported that OSC met on February 1. They discussed bingo.
The group is changing the way prizes are purchased. The Staff Week Committee will purchase
the prizes for bingo. Bingo prizes
will be more organized and staff will get to choose their own prize when they
win. The morning event will be in
Santee Lounge. The group is
finished with their awards selections.
Linda said OSC had lost a Staff Senate representative, a coordinator and
a couple of OSC representatives.
She remarked that everyone is very busy with their jobs!
Administrative Staff Council: President Sue-Anna Miller reported that
the ASC Awards Selection Committee had met that morning and made their
selection.
Informational Staff Association: President
Kevin Jarnagin reported that ISA met on February 7. The group discussed their art show. Normally, they hold their event in the
University Club, but the Club is booked the day set aside for their event, so
they will have the art show in Beaird Lounge. They will have music and are very excited about the new
location. The group had an update
on their adopted family and holiday gift program. They were able to provide for 36 children and changed lives!
STANDING COMMITTEES
OU Staff Week Committee: Chair Dan Hough reported that the Staff
Week Committee met on February 8.
He passed out the official logo and gave the schedule of events which
will be listed on the Staff Week web site at http://www.ou.edu/ousweek/
Dan said the order form for the t-shirts should
be out within a week. WomenÕs cut
and long sleeve will be in red, and short sleeve will be in charcoal grey.
Employment Benefits Committee: Debbie Copp, Staff Senate
representative to the EBC, said some exciting things could be happening soon in
terms of contracts with providers here in Norman. EBC had a report about the panel. They are currently trying
to determine all the things they will be looking at. They are looking at it as a two-prong deal - immediate
issues in terms of funding and long term issues. There are six people on the panel and they will be adding
people to the group as its focus is determined.
Also, in addition to our panel at OU, a panel
has been put together for the State Regents for Higher Education who are
looking at health care and its costs, and another panel has been put together
by OSEEGIB to look at health care.
She said there are a lot of panels in Oklahoma now looking at health
care costs, and hopefully, what those groups find can be put together so that
we can all benefit. She said if
anyone had questions, they could email her. Of some interest, Debbie said she was doing
research in some archived files and found records of University Senate meetings
from 1953. They were talking then
about health care costs. They were
concerned in 1953 that faculty members were being asked to buy life insurance
policies for $3,000 a year and the cost of it. Debbie remarked that this is not a new discussion.
CORRESPONDENCE
Memo from
Staff Senate Chair to President Boren regarding retiree member on the
Employment Benefits Committee. This was linked to the agenda. Betty said the retiree member has been fully approved so
they are now a voting member.
REPORTS
The
following reports were linked to the February agenda:
Staff Senate
Foundation account report.
Minutes of
Employment Benefits Committee meeting of November 16, 2006.
NEW BUSINESS
Consideration of proposal from
Personnel Policies Committee to use extended sick leave for family
members: The proposal
was linked to the agenda. Attending the meeting from the Personnel Policies
Committee to answer questions regarding the proposal were PPC Co-Chair Cathy
Trujillo and PPC member Linda Smith. Betty asked Linda Smith who chaired the PPC
subcommittee for the Extended Sick Leave proposal to address the group. Linda said the PPC had wanted to
change the shared leave policy so it could cover the family members, but since
that is a limited funded program, that policy would not be able to change. So PPC set out to find another
way to protect the staff employee when they have an ill family member to care
for. They looked at ESL. They
realized everyone does not have ESL, but a lot of staff are covered. Many staff donÕt feel ESL will ever
benefit them; they think it is a waste.
They donÕt want to let hours roll over into ESL because they think they
will never use it. PPC feels their
proposal is an incentive to let hours build up and a way to use it other than
when you retire. [960 hours in ESL can be converted to an additional year of
service for TeachersÕ Retirement purposes.] Cathy said they were looking at the younger employees to
give them an incentive to let their time roll over into ESL and be able to use
it in an emergency. They are
proposing that it be set up similar to FMLA. Staff would still have to use 56 hours of paid leave before
accessing ESL, but instead of having to use paid leave for the duration of time
off to care for an ill family member, you could use ESL, and it would cover not
only people living in the household but others outside the household –
parents, so you could take care of them without having to use all of your paid
leave, so that when you are able to return to work you would still have paid
leave hours for vacation purposes if needed.
Cathy Trijullo added that it would be
implemented in the very same way ESL is currently implemented, only it would
cover someone other than yourself. You
can now access ESL after 7 days of hospitalization (for yourself only). This opens it up for family. (She said immediate family is defined
in the Staff Handbook. It would be
the same as already in place.)
Betty commented that she felt the terminology
was vague and would like to see the proposal be more specific. She said it might be that a lot of
people were interested in such a policy but felt it needed more research, and
she thought we needed to know what impact it would have. Chair-elect Beth Gatewood said that ESL
as well as paid leave are both unfunded liabilities for the University, and it
could become a very costly benefit to staff. Cathy said the committee had requested but did not have
enough time to get information on how many staff had taken family leave for
other family members during the last three years.
A member suggested revising the policy so a
person could not exceed the number of paid leave hours in their account. It might be necessary to charge their
vacation for ESL if they decided to leave the University. For example, someone could use
their ESL and come back and work a day or two and then leave the University and
get paid their vacation time and the department would get hit twice. Linda was asked if other
universities had similar policies.
She said they did, but they called it different things, such as crisis
leave. Some let their employees
take time off for disasters. It is
part of their benefit package.
Their paid leave package is broken down more than our plan, similar to
the time when OU tracked separate vacation and sick leave balances. Betty remarked that not all staff have
extended sick leave balances, so 100% of staff would not benefit from such a
plan.
Cathy pointed out an error in the proposal. The last sentence in the first
paragraph states that the only way to accumulate hours in ESL is when an
employeeÕs leave balance exceeds the maximum leave balance. She said that is not true. An employee can transfer hours from their
paid leave balance into their ESL account; however, the time can not be
transferred back.
Robert Murphy questioned why we were talking
about cost to the University. He
said the hours were earned by the employee. Sue-Anna replied that when an employee terminated from
the University they are not paid for any time they accumulated in ESL, and
therefore, to implement programs where more of those hours are used would
result in an increased cost to the University. Betty also explained that many people have been with
the University long enough so that when the University made its original
deposit into ESL, they received a deposit of 1,100 hours. Some were hired later and received
deposits of 240 hours. Betty said
some staff have unearned leave sitting in their ESL accounts. [The program came to a halt on July 1,
1996.]
Ed Fontaine thought the proposal was worthy of
further consideration and study.
He suggested a possible 50/50 split with the employee using half ESL and
matching it with their own paid leave.
He said we were all getting older and this affected all of us. He said a 50/50 split would be better
than throwing the entire proposal out the window.
A member commented that the way the proposal was
written, an employee could be out for as long as their ESL lasted. Linda said they wanted the limits to be
the same as those for FMLA. Betty
said the word Ōsimilar to FMLAĶ had been used in the proposal. It did not say it would abide by
FMLA. She thought it needed
clarification. Robert Murphy
then moved that the proposal be sent back to the PPC for further
consideration. The motion
was seconded and passed on a show of hands.
Consideration of changing March meeting date
due to Spring Break Schedule: Betty asked the members
if anyone would have problems attending the scheduled March 21 meeting because
of spring break. Several members
responded affirmatively. A prior
check had confirmed that the Seminar Room in the NEL Building would be
available to the group on Thursday, March 29 at 1:30. Betty asked if the group would prefer to move the March
meeting to that date. Robert
Murphy made a motion to move the March 21 meeting to March 29 to accommodate
membersÕ schedules. The motion
passed on a voice vote with one opposed.
MISCELLANEOUS
Joan Koos noted that the Physical
Plant did a good job during the ice storm. She noticed that especially since she is in the Housing area and they had students in the
residence halls eating in the cafeterias.
The Housing staff were able to be there to take care of the students
when everyone else got to take off – they were there taking care of the
students. She said that was a good
thing. Joan also reminded
the member groups to be sure to inform everyone who was nominated for an award,
whether they won an award or not, that they were nominated. She said it was
important to let them know they were nominated – that someone
thought highly of them and valued their contributions.
Betty reminded everyone that the
mayoral candidate debate would be on February 28 at the Paul F. Sharp Concert
Hall at 6:00 p.m. She encouraged
staff to attend or to listen on cable channel 20 for the debate. That election is set for March 6. Debbie said absentee ballots will be
accepted until February 28 and can also be done online this year.
ADJOURNMENT
As there was
no further business, the meeting adjourned at 2:16 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Barbara
Perry
Administrative Coordinator
Chris McNabb
Recording Secretary