On issues of significance to the staff, he stated:

• Reduction in Force Policy – a decision will be made by the end of the month,
• Catastrophic Leave Bank – was discussed at this week’s cabinet meeting, He has asked for more input as to consequences.  He hopes to have a decision by the end of the month,
• President’s Council – asked Mike Dunn to serve on the council, wanted representatives from all constituencies on campus

The floor was opened to questions. 

Lu Ann South asked about the Promise Scholarship and its effect on higher education.  Mr. Farrell stated that it is a financial burden to the state as written.  The Governor has under funded the Scholarship in the proposed budget by 3 million dollars and expressed concerns about its long term future.   Mr. Farrell discussed the continuing increases in higher education and the need for outside funding sources; out of state students, gifts, endowed chairs, etc., to make up the difference.

Leonard Lovely asked for Mr. Farrell’s opinion of the municipal services fee increase by the City of Huntington.  Although MU has paid 2005 assessment, Mr. Farrell discussed the city’s need for funding.  He is hoping that MU can be part of the force that moves the city along.  He believes the city cannot get below a population of 50,000 because of the federal funding that will be lost.  He stressed the need for a regional concept. 

Bernice Bullock mentioned the Heritage Committee.  She indicated that there is a pool of retirees from staff and administrators who are not being considered by the committee.  She stated that the Emeritus Club would have contact information on these individuals.   She also asked that the scope of the award be broadened to include these groups.  Mr. Farrell agreed and asked for more information from Bernice.  He would like to see if one committee would be sufficient or if a second committee needs to be created for staff and administrators.  He is interested in recognizing individuals who have made contributions to the University and have not been recognized.

Stephanie Neal thanked Mr. Farrell for putting Mike Dunn, Staff Council Chair, on his Council.  She also thanked him for being included in the recent legislative reception at the President’s Home.  Stephanie mentioned the need to be kept informed of the institution’s position on legislative type issues.  Mr. Farrell indicated his willingness to do so.  He asked that she contact Cora to set up a standing meeting for him with Stephanie, Bill Burdette and David Ice approximately every two weeks to report on and discuss legislative issues. 

Lu Ann South expressed her concern over the hiring of part-time faculty instead of PhDs.  Mr. Farrell provided the following statistics:   428 faculty positions are filled with tenure track candidates, 51 temporary faculty and 84 faculty positions remain open; more than 20% of faculty are not at Marshall with qualifications desired by the administration.  Mr. Farrell again stressed the need for more funding. 

Tom Dorsey raised the issue of increase in costs each year (parking, PEIA, etc.) and the raises provided not being enough to cover these increases.  Is anything being done to give employees a break in costs?  Mr. Farrell does not see immediate relief in the near future.  He stressed being in touch with our legislators and informing them of the cost impact.

Bernice Bullock asked if Mr. Farrell will return to the Board of Governors after a new president is hired.  General Mooney was appointed by Governor Wise when Mr. Farrell became interim president.  Three slots will be available on the BOG in the future.  Mr. Farrell stated that he will be helping Marshall in some area.

Leonard Lovely asked about the 3 million cut – is the President looking at numbers of employees to cut.  Mr. Farrell asked Herb Karlet where the cuts can come from.  At present, they are not looking at specific cuts.  The Budget will be finalized by mid April.  Mr. Farrell hopes to have continguiency plans in place by March 15 so he can show the legislature what effect such cuts will have on the institution.   

Patsy Stephenson thanked Mr. Farrell for his leadership and the motivation he brought into our meeting room.  She asked what staff can do to move the University forward.  He stated that we look and see what can be done better, more efficiency; where can we save money or make more revenue.  He asked for input from everyone. 

Mr. Jim Stephens – Human Resources

Mr. Stephens said the telephone directories have been printed and are now being bound.  They should be available for distribution in a few days.

The Safety Committee now has an input form on the safety committee site, http://www.marshall.edu/safety. Safety concerns can be submitted to the committee using this form.  The committee plans to keep a record of the issues received and the recommendations made for the problem.  There will also be a record of action taken by administration after the committee has made its recommendations.

There was some confusion concerning the PEIA open enrollment deadline.  The February deadline referred to on-line enrollment.  The open enrollment period is April 4-May 6.  During that time period employees will either submit change requests and tobacco avadavat using paper form or the on-line system (if they enrolled by the February deadline to do so). 

Mr. Stephens stated that the Board of Governors needs to write two policies of interest to classified staff.  He and Mike McGuffey are working on this project.  They may put the details in a procedure on the HR web page.  

• Employee Innovation (State Code 18D-7-9) - which was to be in place in 1994.   This will put a policy in place which will discourage temporary non-emergency changes in employee work schedules.  This policy will also address feasible and innovative ways to utilize classified employees such as job-sharing and 4-day work weeks. 

• Catastrophic Leave – the last policy was from 1992.  It needs to be refreshed and put up as a Board of Governors Policy

• Mr. Stephens encouraged input on both these issues from members of the classified staff.

Mr. Stephens did a follow-up to Leonard Lovely’s request that the new hire list provided monthly to the mailroom be modified to include all new employees.  This has been done.

Mr. Stephens opened the floor to questions:

• Lu Ann South raised a question concerning current employees being considered for positions regardless of their current pay grade.  Mr. Stephens stated that a classified employee may bid for a classified position regardless of whether the open position is at the same, higher, or lower grade than the applicant’s current grade, but stated that the salary rate would be affected if the open position is at a higher or lower grade than his/her current grade.  He stated that it is the policy of the University to guarantee interviews to qualified classified bidders for either FLSA exempt or non-exempt classified vacancies.

• Bernice Bullock asked if a notice concerning the safety committee form had been sent to the classified staff.  Mr. Stephens indicated that he planned to do so. 

• Bernice also mentioned the Catastrophic Leave Policy.  Mike McGuffey has set a tight deadline of March 1 for comments.  She does not feel this is adequate time to send the request to a committee and get comments organized when the notice was just received today.  Mr. Stephens suggested we get the basics from the 1992 policy to Mike to be included in the draft policy.  Mr. Farrell said the Chancellor gave the Board a list of policies that had not been adopted and transferred from the previous system and gave a deadline of March 9 to enact the policies.  Mr. Farrell suggested that the council look at the policy as adopted and, if we have concerns, bring it forward.  The policies can be amended. 

• Bernice asked about Staff Council’s resolution requesting employee notification when they are nearing the limit for their annual leave accrual.  Instead of losing leave, they would have the option of donating this leave to the Catastrophic Leave Bank.   Mr. Stephens stated that this is a good idea that is in the queue with other projects. 

• Bernice raised the question of who determines if a position is exempt or non-exempt.  That decision, according to Mr. Stephens, is made by the HR Compensation Analyst. 

• Leonard Lovely questioned the snow policy and the two hour delay.  A lengthy discussion ensued concerning this matter.  Mr. Stephens feels the policy is clearer and more direct than previous policies.  The Classified Staff handbook has been updated on line with this new policy and a history of the changes to the policy are included in the back of the handbook.

• Leonard raised the issue of hard copies of the Classified Staff handbook to be provided by the HR Office to employees as indicated in the January 17, 2002 Staff Council minutes.  Mr. Stephens stated that putting the handbook on the web was a cost cutting measure.  If the administration provides the budget for printing, he is more than willing to do so.  Mr. Farrell asked Mr. Stephens for a budget to see if the printing costs can be covered.  He will report back to Mike on this matter.  Stephanie suggested the handbook be printed in a binder format so that updated pages could be inserted and outdated ones removed.  It was also suggested that if a handbook could not be provided to each employee, perhaps each division or area could have a hard copy on site. 

Feon Smith – Black History Month

Feon Smith circulated fliers and discussed the unveiling of the Marian Anderson 2005 Black Heritage Commemorative U.S. Postage Stamp.  The event, scheduled for Monday, February 28 at 6:00 p.m. p.m. in the Memorial Student Center’s Don Morris Room, is free and open to the public.  Invitations will be sent to the entire university electronically.  A press release is also planned. 

The Fifth Annual Diversity Breakfast will be held on Friday, February 25, 2005 at 7:30 a.m. in the Memorial Student Center’s Don Morris Room.  Ticket information is available from Maurice Cooley.

Announcements – Mike Dunn

·        Mike recognized Delbert Harless, a 31 year MU employee in the Physical Plant, who will retire at the end of February.  Mr. Harless has never taken a sick day.

·        The Faculty Senate has decided not to back Staff Council’s smokeless tobacco policy.  Mike asked Bernice to comment on this matter.  Bernice said during discussion one of the reasons for the Faculty Senate’s decision was because the University does not have a ban on smoking.  There was also concern as to what would be next.  Bernice provided justification to Faculty Senate for the recommendation although the Student Government representative said they had not heard of the recommendation and were totally opposed to it.  This is contrary to a letter of support from the SGA in the Staff Council files.  The recommendation was sent back to committee by Faculty Senate.  Bernice said Staff Council needs to make a decision as to what they want to do; pursue the issue, re-write the recommendation, and bring it forward again?  After much discussion it was decided to resubmit the recommendation.

·        The BOG Policies 23-30 and the tight timeframe for comments was discussed at length.  It was decided to hold a special Staff Council meeting on Friday, February 25 to comment on policies. 

Stephanie Neal – ACCE

The Advisory Council met on February 2 at the Graduate College.  Stephanie provided the following information from the meeting:

·        Cost of Increasing Retirement Contributions by 1.5%  Report.  Copy provided is an updated version of report provided at last meeting.  The Advisory Board had concerns about the number of faculty included in the figures presented.  Several errors were discovered, such as totals (previous report lists 12,531, correct total is 10,094) of benefit eligible employees.  Total cost was originally estimated at $6,614,298.00, corrected version lists a total of $6,430,910.00.

·        AFT’s announcement of forming a division entirely for higher education.  The Advisory Council’s official position is that they are considering the pros and cons of unionization and they will discuss matter in detail

·        Legislative Agenda for the Advisory Council will be finalized next week.  Stephanie will provide copies to Staff Council   Brochures will be ready for distribution on Higher Education Day (March 16).  The Advisory Council will be meeting with members of the legislature and have made a request to meet with the governor on Higher Education Day.

Stephanie provided copies of the following reports from the WV Higher Education Policy Commission:

• Report on Series 8 and a Report on Classified Salary Schedule.  The Commission is considering hiring a consultant to do the actual writing of the drafts for Series 8.  Deadline has been moved; first draft is due by the end of February.  It will be on the HEPC web site so that everyone will be able to access and make comments on the draft to the committee.  A notebook with information concerning the Equity Step was provided to Mr. Farrell.

• Discussion of Possible Amendments to WV Code 18B-7-1 Regarding “Bumping” Because of recent court cases in which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the employees, a more specific policy about bumping rights is needed in the state code.  The Advisory Council position is that any proposed changes need to go through the Series 8 Committee. 

Stephanie informed us that we do not need to be concerned about SB 76 from Senator Prezioso with a purpose of reinstating the years of service increment awards without a cap.  The cap was removed two years ago with HB 2228.  She will speak with the senator to see if this is a carry-over from last year.

The Advisory council is going to sponsor a Classified Employee Leadership Conference in June.  This will be the first of its kind and will be open to advisory council members, staff council chairs, board of advisors representatives and board of governors representatives. 

The next Advisory Council meeting is March 16, in Charleston on Higher Education Day. 

Recommendations

Emeritus Status Policy After some discussion, Bernice made a motion to accept the policy as written.  Leonard seconded.  Motion carried.

Human Resources Policy # 4.12 (December new hires) Leonard Lovely made a motion to accept the policy as written.  Bernice seconded.  Motion carried.

Standing Committee Reports

Election Committee – Carol Hurula - Elections were held to replace three members of Council (1 position from Other Professionals EEO Group and 2 positions in Clerical EEO Group).  Results information will be available tomorrow. 

Staff Development/Service Committee – Yanzhi Wu – Copies of the Staff Tuition Waiver application were distributed for review.  Yanzhi asked for comments before the next meeting.  Lisa Imperi reported that four flower arrangements totaling $108.17 had been sent leaving a balance of $267.27.  Two cards were also sent.

Physical Environment Committee – Leonard Lovely - No report

Legislative Affairs – Stephanie Neal - No report - Committee will meet next week

Faculty Senate Standing Committees

No Reports

 Items for Next Month’s Agenda

Jody Perry provided copies of a draft policy for an e-mail distribution policy that Arnold Miller is working on.  Jody asked for suggestions for the policy by next month’s meeting.

Staff Recognition Luncheon – Joe Wortham

Joe said the 2005 Staff Recognition Luncheon will be held on Thursday, June 9, 2005.  At present, there are 100 recipients which is an increase of 27 from last year.  Twenty-six people are listed as retirees, but that number is subject to change.  Interim President Farrell has approved the budget for the luncheon. 

Mr. Stephens discussed the Employee of the Year Award.  This award is the culmination of the Employee of the Month award.  Mr. Stephens said that the person recognized as Employee of the Year does not have to be from the group recognized on a monthly basis for the year.  Anyone from the classified staff body can be nominated.  He asked that the Employee of the Year Award be recognized at the luncheon.  He stressed that doing so would be of no cost to the Staff Council. 

As has been done in the past, members of the Staff Development/Service Committee will collect funds for the flower fund at the door on the day of the luncheon.

There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 2:58 p.m.

Minutes prepared by:           ________________________________________________

                                                 Charlene R. Hawkins, Program Assistant, Staff Council

Minutes approved by:           ________________________________________________

                                                  Michael Dunn, Chair, Staff Council

Minutes read by:                   ________________________________________________

                                                  Michael Farrell, Interim President