STAFF COUNCIL MEETING
Thursday, September 9, 2004
2:00 p.m., Chappell 102
Present: Carol Brown (presiding), Ann Portwood, Paula Jefferson, Myrna Olsson-Owen, Sheryl Snow, Patrice Reaves, Monica Wood, and Doris Henderson, Excused: Neil Jones, Cindy Potts, Rose Murner, and Mike Augustine Absent: Randy Gilman and Demarias Wilkins.. Guests: Dorothy Leland, Ken Vance, Lori Strawder, and Evelyn Thomas.
Call to Order. Carol Brown called the meeting to order at 2:03 p.m.
Approval of Minutes. A motion was made, seconded, and approved to accept the minutes of the June meeting as written.
Parking Issues. Ken Vance was at the meeting to discuss parking (the result of a recent request made by a staff member). Ken distributed copies of the public safety traffic rules parking map and the public safety report. Both these reports are available by calling Public Safety and asking to have them sent to you. Ken said we are much better off with our parking situation this year than we have been in the last three years; however, due to the large amount of construction we have going on, we still face a parking problem. There is simply not enough room surrounding our campus to expand our facilities. There are over 6,000 cars coming to this location every day to try to find parking in only 2,300 available spaces.
We do have 501 parking spaces available three blocks from campus (the old Baldwin Middle School location), and the shuttle runs every fifteen minutes for those who would like to park there. The primary concern from the staff member who suggested this item about parking was the limited space available at the Smith House. Ken said these employees could find ample parking in this new lot.
Plans are underway for another parking lot (with a little over 100 spaces) on the NE corner of Thomas and Clarke Streets. The City of Milledgeville also plans to build a deck in the downtown area with the next SPLOST.
Public Safety officers wrote about 70 tickets per day during the first two weeks of school. There are about 60 tickets per day written now. When cars are ticketed for illegal parking, Public Safety attaches a “please park here” brochure to each ticket so employees and students will know what options are available. Any drivers who receive over three
parking tickets can have their vehicles towed.
Ken answered a few questions and explained a little about the parking map that was distributed. Carol thanked him for coming to the meeting.
Benefits Fair. The annual Benefits Fair will be held on October 29. Monica Wood and Patrice Reaves volunteered to coordinate for Staff Council. We appreciate their willingness to serve. More information will be forthcoming.
Staff Excellence Award. The Staff Excellence Award will be held in December, and Myrna Olsson-Owen has agreed to chair the committee. Neil Jones, Monica Wood, Patrice Reaves, and Doris Henderson volunteered to serve as well. Carol will continue to receive the nominations and prepare them for the committee. We appreciate their willingness to serve. More information will be forthcoming.
Shared Leave. The proposal has been presented to the University Services Committee and will go to University Senate. Hopefully we will begin to implement the policy in January. There will be very strict guidelines associated with the plan.
Pay study. See below.
Proactive Advocate System. Some employees raised a concern about an advocate system. They would like a place to go and talk without having to go before a grievance board. They don’t want Staff Council to get involved with grievances since that is not our function, but they would like to have someone act as a sounding board when they have problems. Sometimes employees feel threatened to go before a grievance committee, and they just need to vent to someone. Staff Council fully supports this type of advocate system. Carol will talk more about it with President Leland at their meeting later on this month.
On a related note, a grievance committee is not formed until a grievance is filed. Guidelines for filing a grievance are posted on the web.
Reminder of State Conference. The Statewide Staff Council Conference will be in Columbus on October 7 and 8, 2004. All staff are eligible to attend, Staff Council Development funds can pay for registrations, and interested staff should call Monica for more information.
Other Business.
Carol introduced President Leland for an update on budget concerns. President Leland has been involved in budget meetings at the BOR for the past few days. We are making plans to cut over $1 million from our permanent budget. Some ways we can cope with this budget cut: mid-year tuition increases and work force reductions through attrition, retirement, or lay offs. President Leland wants to avoid lay offs, and she said the Chancellor is very clear in his remarks that work force reduction doesn’t automatically mean lay offs. Attrition means that when a person leaves for whatever reason, his/her position is not filled. It doesn’t mean that the position never comes back. It just means that you have to create the position again when new dollars are in the budget. President Leland is looking hard for ways we can save money, and each vice president is working with his/her area to get these same kinds of ideas.
We will still get our merit-based increases in January. Money left over from the amount we were allotted for these increases will be used to create a salary equity pool. This will allow us to keep the money here on campus.
President Leland also addressed the pay study issue. Bonnie Sims has completed the update of the staff portion. We still don’t quite have the total picture concerning the study, but when we do, President Leland will meet with us and offer some proposals. It would cost a little over $1 million to assure all staff are to the market minimum. It would cost $3.5 million to take all staff to the market medium. The most severe problems appear to be at the director level and above (middle management areas). We have a large number of staff who are already at market minimum or above. Addressing these pay study issues means coming up with a plan: the first step would be to create a salary equity pool; the second step would be to peel these dollars off the top of the budget before it goes to any areas or down to any units and say this is our market equity pool.
Bonnie has cleaned up the data from the pay study, and President Leland wants to release it to us. She hopes the faculty portion of the study isn’t as severe as the staff portion is. One member present asked if early retirement could be an option for staff as it is for faculty. The president said the option is being discussed. She should have more information about it soon.
Carol thanked President Leland for coming to the meeting.
A council member brought forth a concern from someone in her area about the possibility of increasing the amount of Staff Development Funds individual staff can receive. The limit is currently $200, but the request was made to raise the limit to $300. Since the cost of many conferences has risen, we may need to revisit the issue and revise our guidelines. Carol will talk with the chair of the committee that drafted the original guidelines and get back to us.
Also, Monica receives lots of information from different seminars since she handles our registrations, and she will share that information with us. The possibility of GCSU hosting a conference was mentioned.
Adjournment. The meeting was adjourned at 3:07 p.m. Meeting dates for the year are: December 9, March 17, May 19, and June 16. All meetings are scheduled for 2:00 p.m. in Chappell 102. Other meetings may be added as needed.