MARSHALL UNIVERSITY CLASSIFIED STAFF COUNCIL
MINUTES
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2001
MUGC ROOM 319
President
Barrett called the meeting to order at 1:10 pm. President Barrett asked if any corrections or
discussion for last month’s minutes needed to be addressed.
Motion was made to approve the minutes, accepted and seconded.
Council unanimously approved the minutes as written.
Election Committee: Carla
Cook reported she felt the special
election ran very smoothly
in regards to the short time frame in which it had to be carried out.
The committee had met and discussed
exactly what was to happen, how fast they needed to make it happen, and
what was going to have to be done. Carla
noted that voter turn out was great for this election.
The committee received 11 nominations but two declined.
She reported that voting areas had been placed in Old Main, Sorrell
Maintenance, Robert C. Byrd and the VA Medical School.
She had asked Jerri Clagg, John Ball, and Barbara Hayes to serve as
tellers. Nine people ran as
candidates. Sherri Noble was
declared as the winner but voting was very close.
Carla was very pleased with the overall election,
it had ran very smoothly and
she felt she would have far greater ease with the election to be held in May as
this had been an unexpected experience for her.
President Barrett announced that an invitation had
been extended to Senator Bob Plymale to attend our November meeting but
confirmation had not been received from his office that he would be able to do
so.
SERVICE COMMIITTEE REPORT - by Charlene Hawkins for Bernice Bullock.
Charlene reported for the month of
October 2 get well cards had been sent, 2
sympathy cards, 2 sympathy flower
arrangements, 1 get well flower arrangement,
and a memorial contribution to the Andrew Chapel Methodist Church for
Herbert Don Seay, Sr. This was in remembrance of Carol Skaggs father.
Carol works in the Receiving Department of Marshall.
STAFF DEVELOPMENT:
Muhammad Chaudhry Money is available for
Spring Term to fund 30-35 (3 credit hours each)
tuition waivers. The
deadline to submit applications for Spring Term is November 15, 2001. Notification letters will go out sometime after November 28, 2001, which is the next
scheduled meeting for the Staff Development Committee.
Muhammad feels anyone who
applies for a waiver will receive one as long as they meet minimum requirements.
UNIVERSITY
FUNCTIONS: Charlene
Hawkins
The committee met October 24th and the discussion was to compile a
list of recipients for Honorary Degrees and possible commencement speakers.
It was highly stressed that this was to be only a recommendation; that a
board is in place to review recommendations and the President will have the
final say so on this matter. A list
of candidates was submitted for the honorary degree and possible speakers.
Charlene was not at liberty to discuss the nominees because
confidentiality needed to be held in this regard.
The committee will probably not meet again until sometime in the spring
term. This committee only meets 2
or 3 times through the academic year.
President Barrett noted that Sherri Noble was in
attendance of the meeting and wanted to introduce her to Council.
Sherri thanked everyone for his or her support.
Sherri announced the next Institutional Board of Governor’s meeting is
scheduled for November 8th. She
had been away to the JEC meetings during this week
and didn’t have an actual report.
Sherri will be sworn in at the next meeting.
At
last month’s meeting a departmental only recruiting issue had been brought
before Council. After checking into
the matter Mr. Stephens said HR had reviewed this and a policy decision had been
made. In the future Marshall
recruiting will be one of two types; Public Recruiting in which Marshall
employees and members of the general public may bid for a position; the second
will be Marshall University-only recruiting, where bids will be accepted
from regular status employees. There
are other situations that will “look like” department-only recruiting but
must be resolved within the employing department only.
An example of this is the Building Service Worker-Lead. These are not actually true vacancies that can be posted for
recruiting and awarded to the successful bidder. Rather an individual within the work unit is selected and
reclassified in place to the lead classification. Also, it is not possible that an individual outside the
department and outside the feeder classification for that job can get it, so
there is no point to post it University-wide.
These kinds of situations will go but are not formal department-only
recruiting. If members become aware
of and are concerned about a situation that looks like department-only
recruiting, they should contact Mr. Stephens.
He will review each situation on a case-by-case basis.
Question
was raised regarding the annual /sick leave report. Mr. Stephens advised the machine that provided this
information is broken and there is no plan to repair it.
Eventually annual/sick reports will be produced through the Banner
system. Those having access can
view this on line at the present time and check balances. Eventually a program will be developed to produce a
report, however, this is not up and running.
They hope to eventually have this through payroll on the banner system.
It is still in the production process and a time frame has not been
reached as to when this will be implemented into the system.
Question
was raised if annual/sick leave could not be reported on paychecks.
Mr. Stephens advised this was produced by the State of WV through the
EPIC Payroll System and in its formulation of what is listed on checks is a
function of that state program. Whether it can record that or they choose to add
it to provide information to employees would be a state decision.
What Mr. Stephens hopes is to continue providing a paper report that
would be accessible to employees.
Mr.
Stephens thanked council and input from members and asked us to please contact
him if we should have any questions or concerns.
President
Barrett introduced Ms. Buttrick to Council.
She thanked Council for the opportunity to attend and wanted us to use
our time in asking questions and addressing concerns we may have.
Ms. Buttrick distributed information regarding Series 8:
Personnel Administration. The
Governing Board put out some information of guidance to institutions and the
Legislation of Senate Bill 703 also had guidance as how institutions should
handle increases. It did not tell
institutions what to do but did indicate every year that the Higher Ed Policy
Commission would require by December 1 of each year a progress report be
submitted to the Legislative Oversight Committee on Educational Accountability
as to progress made by each institution toward the funding of that salary
schedule. That same Senate Bill
included a new salary schedule which is based on a new market study that was
reviewed in 1999 which is about a 21% increase overall.
So, we have people below the zero step, below the entry step and people
obviously now are no longer on their years of service step. The Higher Ed Policy Commission came out and said
all your employees, all groups of employees, which the Policy Commission defines
as Classified Employees, Non-classified Employees and Faculty, are to receive a
raise based on policy that your institution develops and that all groups must
get a raise but not every employee in the group is required to get a raise.
Stipulation was made that merit would be part of the process for faculty
in 2 years and merit has always been a part of it many times for non-classified
and will become a more formal process.
The merit issue is also out their for classified staff, however, the
Policy Commission did not say as of October 1, as to when classified staff
should be paid by merit.
The
next issue of concern for campuses was having enough monies to bring employees
up to the new entry level and still have enough monies to give other classified
employees an increase. Many factors
came into play regarding raises this year and some things are still unresolved.
A meeting is scheduled for next week which Ms. Buttrick is in hopes that
remaining questions will be answered. The
Institutional Compact Report is due to the Higher Ed Policy Commission and
should be addressed at this upcoming meeting scheduled for Thursday of next
week.
Series
8 is actually old Series 62: The Personnel Administration Policy and is now
referred by Higher Ed Policy as Series 8. We
placed in Section 12 – page 107 of this handout something the Higher Ed Policy
Commission originally wanted. Originally
we were going to give institutions 2 fiscal years to fund the entry level for
all employees and that also meant in that same time period all new hires would
be at the new entry level. This was
an agenda item at last weeks meeting of the Higher Ed.
What the commission approved on this rule is “the entry rate for any
classified employee after July 1, 2005 shall not be below the entry (zero) step
set out in WV Code §8B-9-3 for the pay grade assigned”.
Some people questioned why the minimum entry rate on the next page is the
same as the old salary scale and
not the new schedule. That is
because no institution will be allowed to hire below this rate.
Most campuses are hiring somewhere between the old entry rate and the new
entry rate.
Question
rose by Jim Stephens re: hiring at pay above entry levels.
Ms. Buttrick responded that she and Amy Pitzer, Chair of Advisory
Council, had recently spoken with Bruce Walker and gotten clarification on this
matter.
There
is a section in code that indicates exempt classified employees can be paid at
an accelerated rate once all exempt classified employees are paid at their years
of service. That language meant to
Ms. Buttrick once institutions got people to that point they could move them
ahead for retention purposes. It
was not meant to eliminate pay above entry and Mr. Walker’s legal
interpretation is that it does not. That
present language in code does not mean this and if it does need cleaned up it
will be done in the 2002 Legislative session.
That is why it is imperative that some kind of communication be sent out
regarding this matter. The
intention for removal of this was that the institutions now had more autonomy
and there was not a need for this to come before the JEC because everyone’s
entry rate is different. When
we send out that interpretation from Mr. Walker we will also be indicating that
pay above entry letters no longer need to come to JEC for review. So the overview of this is that institutions may hire
in at pay above entry in accordance to whatever policy they develop for it.
Question
regarding full funding of salary schedule.
Ms. Buttrick noted that they have not been able to get full clarification
from LOCEA on this issue or some kind of guideline. She is in hopes once they receive the report due
December 1, see how all this is up in the air she hopes some kind of formal
directive will be issued.
This
next issue resolves around the rewriting of Series 8. In regards to Series 62:
it is a Legislative Rule and
has the same enforcement as law. Before
it can be changed it must go before the Legislative Oversight Committee on
Educational Accountability. They
must approve it and pass it in a bill during the next regular session.
This is now a procedural rule and no longer requires their review or
approval. This now
gives HEPC the authority to revise the rule anytime.
There is a process for this, we
do let people know that it is our intent to revise and that communication has
been made. It will also go out for a comment period before it goes
to the HEPC and they will file it with the Secretary of State for comments.
This will also allow for internal comments to be made as well.
Ms.
Buttrick is working on this now and has rewritten up to the job evaluation
committee. She did not go any
further as she was not sure what should be done with the JEC but her plan is to
change it. After this
is rewritten this will give lots of flexibility to the campus for writing their
own human resources rule. Basically
classification will be covered here and some other things but most everything
will move down to the campus level.
We are adding a comprehensive personnel rule.
Adding the HEPC Policy which is Series 26,
Equal Employment Policy ,
Sick
and Annual Leave Policy, Social
Justice Policy, Series 62 and
Series 31 is going to be one comprehensive rule.
Which
means campuses will have a lot of flexibility but it will also mean HR offices
will have a lot of work to do because they will have to develop policies which
will be approved by the Board of Governors and then sent to the Chancellor for
review. Classification
reviews will be a campus procedure, campuses will determine how you file a
request, time span to review, desk
audits, etc. and leave policy will remain.
Question
regarding 5:00 pm work hour issue.
Ms. Buttrick advised as of right now it will remain in effect.
Question
on Merit Pay: Merit pay
for classified staff
will remain a campus issue and there will not be a state-wide policy.
An evaluation system must be placed on campuses that can be utilized for
doing an evaluation that would lead to merit.
Basic concept has to be supported by the evaluation plan and has to be
tied to the PIQ and that you meet requirements and conditions of that PIQ.
Mr. Stephens is sending to supervisors the notification that a yearly
review is due on each employee. Some
have responded, some not but he
hopes to improve this situation in placing procedures that an evaluation is
completed by ones supervisor. She
does not anticipate a state wide merit procedure to be written.
Issue of increment will not enter as a point of merit,
that is a separate pay process altogether.
Changes
regarding JEC: A smaller committee.
Probably compromised of a committee of
five to seven members. One
of the things will be that every human resource person spends two years on the
JEC on a rotation basis. This will
keep them up to date on JEC and fresh with everything going on.
This committee will not be revised until the Physical Plant review is
done.
Retirement:
Ms. Buttrick advised that we are looking at new additional vendors.
It doesn’t mean we will move from current program but we are doing
study.
Council
thanked Ms. Buttrick for attending and addressing the many concerns we have.
President
Barrett noted that we have a classified staff member in need of catastrophic leave.
If anyone has extra time please try to donate. She also announced groundbreaking for new parking facility
will be November 8, 2001. Next
meeting will be November 15, in the John Spotts room.
Hopefully, Senator Plymale will be in attendance.
No
further business meeting adjourned.