MARSHALL UNIVERSITY CLASSIFIED STAFF COUNCIL MINUTES
THURSDAY, February 27, 2003
Drinko Library – Room 349 

MEMBERS PRESENT: President Barrett,  Jack Blake, Bernice Bullock, Jill Burcham, Muhammad Chaudhry, Betty Cook, Judith Damron, Woodrow Edmonds, Charles Harless, Charlene Hawkins, Leonard Lovely, Sonja McKenna, Sherri Noble, Linda Rhodes, James Sinnette, LuAnn South, Patsy Stephenson, Gary Stone, Joe Taylor, Cora Westmoreland , Joe Wortham 

EXECUSED ABSENCES:  Barbara Black, Carla Cook, David Cremeans, Stephanie Neal, Nancy Pelphrey, Martha Pierson, Leah Tolliver 

GUESTS:  Jim Stephens, Director of Human Resources 

President Barrett called the meeting to order. She asked for a motion to accept the minutes of January 23, 2003. Mr. Lovely said that there is a change he would like to make before we accept the minutes. He would like to have his name added as an abstention on the vote that we had to support the furloughs along with the other two people. President Barrett said so noted that the three names will be listed (Leonard Lovely, Jill Burcham and LuAnn South). Mr. Chaudhry said a typo correction -- instead of Ms. Chaudry it should read Mr. Chaudry. President Barrett asked for a motion to accept minutes with changes.  A motion was made by Leonard Lovely and seconded by Muhammad Chaudry. Motion carried, minutes approved. 

Draft Layoff/furlough/reassignment policy 

President Barrett opened the floor to Mr. Stephens.  President Barrett said most of what we are going to talk about is the policy.  

Ms. South reported that we had (Council) requested questions from staff members here at the University regarding the proposed furlough/layoff policies. There is concern over Policies and Procedures No. 3.115 Actions in Response to Salary Budget Reduction.  

  1. The biggest concern seems to be if there is layoffs, will there be a reduction of all  part-time and extra help employees that are paid by Manpower and Kelly before any permanent layoff is taken?
  1. Mr. Stephens said that we would do this, but there might be some circumstances where we can’t release a temporary or part-time person. He said that the rule says where feasible. By and large, we will expect to do this before any furloughs or layoffs occurred.
  1. Another concern would be where we say it is not feasible and will those assignments be able to be channeled to permanent full-time individuals in the safeguard of a full-time permanent position being held rather than retaining a part-time temporary person?
  1. Mr. Stephens said that he cannot see us staying in a scenario where we have a temporary part-time like an extra help staff, when we contemplating doing something with a regular staff employee. He thinks they would clear all those kinds of issue out before anything is done to any regular status employee, but there is that feasible language and he thinks that we would have to be caucused when that happens and say what are the circumstances, constraints that we are under and is there anything we can and cannot do.
  1. In the current furlough draft it makes no mention that the Board of Governors will have a vote on the furloughs. It is her understanding that before any furloughs can take place the Board of Governors would have to vote on this. Should this be a part of the draft?
  1. Mr. Stephens said that he thinks that this is one of the suggestions for provision that we have been hearing and he thinks that something like this would have to be voted on but we are not at the point yet to reformulate it.  He feels that this consideration has to be on the table.
  1. Should furlough be the first option of the University? The Board has to vote if we take one furlough. If for some reason down the line a second furlough has to come in place, does the Board have to vote again on another furlough?
  1. Mr. Stephens said that he has the sense that if they authorized the furlough that creates a savings of a certain amount of dollars, and if it becomes necessary to do more than that, he feels that they will have to see the issue again.  That whole process of getting the Board of Governors approval is something he is not converse with, but he thinks that they would be potentially approving an action that is reported to save a certain amount of money, and if it became necessary to save more money he feels that they should have another look at it. He is not sure exactly how they would do it because he does not speak for the President or the Board.
  1. So many individuals have discussed and have heard anywhere from five half days to ten days out of the year for furlough, and those rumors seem to be growing. Has there been any more mention of designated amount of days that a furlough will take place, or do we have enough information at this time to even go forward with that thought.
  1. Mr. Stephens said there has been no conversations that he is aware of that have identified an amount of time that has to be spent on furloughs. He thinks that everybody needs to understand that we are dealing with unknowns and a lot of uncertainty. If some reduction of salary budget becomes necessary, and if furloughs are determined to be a useful tool, we can do a calculation of how much furlough it would take to recoup that money. There has been no conversation about a certain amount of time, or number of days, or distribution of the days across the month or anything like that, except remember the early conversations about the five days that did not have any basis in it. It was kind of a programmatic need for a five-day furlough that just sprung up from the conversation about trying to observe furlough that did not generate unemployment compensation payments. We are really under so such constraints. It could be two, seven or whatever they need if we choose to go that route.
  1. Ms. Bullock said at the last Staff Council meeting you made a statement that there was a Federal law that a furlough period can only be five days within a 52-week period.
  1. Mr. Stephens said that he did not make exactly that statement. What he said was that if a person wants to file a claim for unemployment compensation benefits, and they have been furloughed, and they go to the Bureau of Employment Programs, and they file their claim, that starts a claim period of 52 weeks in length, and the first five days of that claim period will not provide a benefit. Potentially, the second and succeeding weeks if they continue to be off from work might generate a benefit, but there is no law constraints that it can only be five days in a 52-week period, nor is there any sense that that is a good amount of time. That just came up in the conversations because that is the length of time that won’t generate an unemployment compensation claim. And there is no design to deny anybody their benefits, but if you start paying those claims you have to add them in the cost you have to recover. He continued to explain. Ms. Bullock said so if we are furloughed for a five-day period we cannot file unemployment claims, but if three months later we are furloughed for a five-day period that does not count the first five days. Mr. Stephens said that is partially correct. He said that you may file your claim anytime. There is no limitation on your contacting the Bureau of Employment Program. You can go down the first day that you are furloughed and file a claim. He is saying when your claim is started the first five days will be without a benefit, but if we had a subsequent round of furloughs your claim would have started when you first contacted the Bureau of Employment program. And if your five days have lapsed, you would potentially become eligible for benefits, it does not start over. However, if nothing happened in regard to your claim and a year went by (52 weeks) then you start over a new claim period and that is the only reason why that five days have been woven into conversations.  It is a consideration about unemployment, but it has nothing really to do with whether we will use furlough or how much furlough we would have to reserve.
  1. Ms. Burcham said that there are certain departments on campus who have been told that their people would not be laid off and that they are totally exempted. Is any department here at Marshall exempted?
  1. Mr. Stephens apologized for people not going back to the departments sharing information. We all need to have a sense of community here and we need to have a pre-conversation about what is going on because no one can be in the dark about our situation. If we have a furlough as the policy sits in front of you right now, it is an institution wide furlough. There has been a side bar of discussion that we might have to make provision for a particular unit to have a furlough of its own. Like we all know the School of Medicine’s situation. They are in a worse financial situation than the rest of the University and there might be a scenario where they have a furlough and the rest of the University does not. And if we had layoffs, and again I hope we don’t have to, but if we had to those would be shared across all departmental lines except that we have talked about the impact on classified employees that might have the effects of concentrating classified layoffs in a few departments because of their seniority. In principal, all departments will participate in the furlough if we have an institution wide furlough. No one will be exempted. He continued to explain.
  1. Ms. Damron said that the rumor got around that any of the departments with salaries under $20,000 would not be involved because of their salaries. Part of this was because there was some bad feelings because some of these $20,000 salary people have other income at home and why would they be exempted from this.
  1. Mr. Stephens said that he would have to attribute this to rumor.  We know that a furlough hurts a lower paid person worse than a higher paid person.  The pain will be felt more by some people than by others. But there is no conversation that he has had with anyone that has set up a salary threshold to which we would not furlough. Ms. Burcham said that the department she was referring to said that they are self-sufficient and they make the University money. But we have units across the University that is auxiliary that are suppose to earn their own keep. He is not sure how they will be handled, but he has been led to believe that if a furlough is declared for the institution, everyone will share it. You do have people who are auxiliary, grants and contracts, and we are still deliberating about what you do with those folks.

Q.      Mr. Chaudhry said that he does not understand the furlough policy. If the furlough is institutional wide, is it only for classified and non-classified staff or when we talk about institutional wide does that mean from the President all the way to the bottom.

A.      Mr. Stephens said that some people have come to him and said that some of the other colleges and institutions are not talking about furloughs. He has had more than one person to come to him and say that no one else is doing this and why are we doing this. He thinks the interest in the furlough is in existence at Marshall because the administration does not want to cut jobs. He thinks that the President does not want to cut jobs not unless he is utterly compelled to do it. So the issue becomes if we have to reduce our budget how will we accomplish this? Several proposals came out and one of them got some interest, which was the idea of a furlough. A furlough is a money saving tool and there is no statutory basis for a furlough, and it is not in any order of policy that he is aware of. It is just something that we have identified that would be an effective way to save some salary funds. There is some things that will occur before this, like it was mentioned, the elimination of extra help positions. He continued.

Q.      It was asked the status of MURC employees when it comes to furloughs?

A.      Mr. Stephens said that he is getting mixed signals. He thinks that they are a separate entity but there might be some linkages between MURC and Marshall and it might be beneficial for them to save some money also. Those are financial things that Mr. Stephens are not convergent with. Right now it is best to understand that MURC is a corporation, it is a separate entity, and it has its own financial environment. Mr. Stephens does not know if there will be any merging of our situation with regard to furlough or layoff. Ms. Bullock said but yet we have several MURC employees, that are in positions here that if we go to layoff, could they be reassigned to give jobs to classified employees? Mr. Stephens said that he does not have enough information to answer factually but it is on their list.

Q.      Mr. Lovely said what about the state law saying that you have to layoff and furlough according to seniority. It says that in regard to classified employees. It does not say anything about furlough, it says layoff with classified employees is on the basis of seniority. Would not layoff operate the same as furlough? It is just a different definition as for the length of time. Mr. Stephens said that furloughs preserve our employee count and in the future our employment hopefully will continue to be secure. It is not a process where I look for people to necessarily assert their rights but he said that in the interest of preserving the employee head count at Marshall, he would participate in a furlough. Mr. Stephens continued to discuss this issue.    

  1. Mr. Harless asked about the tangible things such as capitol improvements, new furniture, carpet, office supplies, office equipment, etc. Has anything been discussed about reducing such things as this?
  1. Mr. Stephens said that the way it was put to him, our budgets are sort of aggregated and we will try to make cuts wherever we can and the cuts in personnel will be cuts of last resort.  He does not know if we will be able to suspend all purchasing, stop buying all commodities, but the way it has been told to him, in his own case, he was told to consider his operating budget, contracts and the salary budget. Ms. Burcham said that any piece of equipment has to have approval by the Vice President or it does not get ordered.  Mr. Stephens said that she is correct and he also said that Marshall is freezing vacancies.
  1. Ms. South asked if we should have layoffs and classified position reassignment policy and procedures 3.118. Should a regular status classified position be eliminated due to insufficient funds while there are open classified positions that that individual could be transferred into? Can that individual move into a non-classified position that might be open? In other words, can a classified move into a non-classified if they are qualified for it.
  1. Mr. Stephens said that there would not exist a statutory right to do so but a person can bid for any position that he/she is qualified for. He is not for sure if one can be transferred from a classified to a non-classified position.
  1. Should a regular status classified position be eliminated due to insufficient funds would that individual have seniority rights and be able to bump an employee for the same classified position within Marshall?
  1. Mr. Stephens said that the classified component of any layoff would be done according to WV State Code. You do have bumping rights. The only way we would reassign is if we had a vacant position and there is not an incumbent there who would exercise bumping rights. We assume that position is gone and is eliminated. Discussion continued. Mr. Stephens said that reassignment comes after all bumping has been done.
  1. Ms. Bullock asked a question that relates to the classified position reassignment draft 3.118 where it talks about a PIQ being done within two months of being reassigned to that position. Does this mean that there will be a decision made on the PIQ within two months or does that mean that the process will take two month?
  1. Mr. Stephens said that what they were thinking is that would be a date by which we must have a PIQ in hand and then we would evaluate it. And the reason for this is if we have to do this we were hopeful of making transfers of individuals into situations where the former position was classified the same.
  1. If you were moving to another position in the same pay grade why would you have to have a PIQ?
  1. Mr. Stephens explained how the reassignments would work. Discussion was lengthy.
  1. What would happen if a person did not want to be reassigned to a certain area?
  1. Mr. Stephens said that he does not know what will happen. Mr. Stephens said that they will try to have conversations with everybody involved. If somebody raises a pertinent objection and absolutely cannot, and will not go to that department, then we would have to put it on the table and talk about it.
  1. Mr. Lovely asked that if you are moved then you keep the same pay that you are making then once you do the PIQ is that when your pay goes down?
  1. If you went to a position and you started to do duties formerly performed by someone who is now gone and that job was evaluated at a lower level after we concluded the evaluation process, you might be reclassified downwardly. He continued to explain.
  1. In regard to the elimination of the Kelly Services, what kind of percentages is here (Marshall) that is Kelly Service?
  1. Mr. Stephens said that there is a good number of them here, but he does not know exactly how many. Ms. Burcham said that we have a lot of Kelly Services employees. Ms. Burcham said that if you are going to keep a temporary person and layoff a full-time employee because it may not be feasible to keep that full-time person, but it is feasible to keep that temporary person, she does not see why we would keep any temporary people at all. The question and answer period continued at length.

President Barrett announced that we have to have our input to Mr. Cottrill by March 14, 2003. She asked if there was any other input other than what has been discussed. Ms. Noble said that there is nothing in these policies that gives us anything or any protection. Even if we go back to the 1989 policy that was approved by Dr. Nitzschke, which is not a good policy, but it outlines everything. Ms. Noble said that she would rather see something like the 1989 document and feels that it is not fair for them to ask for comments by March 14 and recommended that we ask the President for an extension. Ms. South said that when we are talking about any individual and let’s use furlough first does that remove them from the insurance. Ms. South said that in 1986 they made the change that says, “If you are not consistently on PEIA then you become one of the employees where three days counts toward a months paid insurance and retirement rather than the two days. So where does this effect an individual if they are furloughed? There is a lot of concern and plenty more questions over this issue. Discussion was lengthy.  

Institutional Board of Governors: Ms. Noble distributed the notes from the January 22, 2003 MU Board of Governors Meeting. She said that the Board of Governors approved several University policies that were previously Trustee’s Series. Actually this is the third set of University policies submitted to the Board for approval. The policies were: #39 Measles & Rubella Immunization Policy, #57 Student Rights & Responsibilities and #60 Student Academic Rights. The Board agreed at the meeting before this that when we got these policies that we would accept them and then review them through the year and make any changes that would be needed for the institution. Dr. Grose provided background information on the process and schedule for the completion of the university master plan. He provided a list of committee members and of course there was one classified staff member and she or President Barrett was not sure how this person was nominated. Ms. Noble asked Dr. Grose about this and he said that we are welcome to nominate somebody else for the committee. President Barrett said that the only thing he has spoken to her about is the meeting that we had with the architect and they did not ask for another member.  Dr. Grose provided a list of capital projects that have been approved by the Higher Education Policy Commission for recommendations to the legislature. Dr. Grose provided a Biotechnology/Science Center update as follows: parking garage portion of the grant is complete, Morrow Library (1st floor) construction to be complete this month, design development phase of main facility is complete and construction documents are scheduled to be finalized for bidding in June 2003. The budget reduction task force committee report was discussed briefly. Lance West & Jeff Porter provided an overview of the Alumni Association. In November Ms. Noble was appointed to the legislative subcommittee for the Board of Governors, however, they have never met. In January, Gary White appointed a whole new committee. Ms. Noble wrote him a letter because she was not sure if this committee was in addition to, or a new committee. He responded and told her that this is a new committee and apologized for the confusion. Stephanie Neal along with students, staff, and faculty will serve on this committee. This committee will determine what group is used to evaluate the president.    

ACCE:    No report. 

STANDING COMMITTEES 

Legislative Affairs: Ms Burcham said that they met on 2/12/03 and our biggest concern is layoff and furloughs. She received an e-mail yesterday from Rudy Wang who said that Senator Plymale has presented a bill for a soft drink tax increase to 1-5 cent. WVU would get 40%, Marshall 20%, and Lewisburg will get 12%. Now this is just a bill that is being introduced. Senators Plymale, Sharp, Hewsler, and Ed Edgell cosponsored it and this bill was presented yesterday. It is called Senate Bill 607. This is one bill that they are really hoping to get passed because Marshall would get a percentage of this soft drink tax for our Medical School. It was mentioned that some of the legislature wants to divert some of this to the Workers Compensation problem. It is still far from a done deal. 

Elections: Mr. Wortham reported that we would have elections for the Board of Governors and ACCE representative by the end of April. They will get together and set up an election schedule for nominations. 

Graduate College: No report. President Barrett asked the people in attendance if this was a beneficial meeting. They felt that they did not get a lot answers from Mr. Stephens. 

Service Awards Committee: Mr. Wortham reported that the committee met once and President Barrett has had a meeting with the President.  He indicated that this year’s service awards would be carried on pretty much as we have done in the past, but we will probably see some changes with the 2004 service awards. What those will be we do not know at this time. Mr. Wortham is in the process of submitting to the President’s Office a proposed budget for this year’s award. President Barrett said that this is the first time that they have asked for a budget. Mr. Wortham said that hopefully he will get the budget turned in the first of next week and that we will get some answers back so we can get everything in order. The tentative date for the luncheon will be Monday, May 5th. This will be the first time that we will have the awards luncheon before graduation.  

Staff Development: Mr. Chaudhry distributed a letter concerning the WSAZ grant. President Barrett said that she is very unhappy that they took back their grant.  They said that it was a misunderstanding that classified staff originally received the grant; instead they intended it for faculty in broadcasting. There was plenty of discussion.  Mr. Chaudhry said that when the interest rates were good we use to get about $1500 - $1700 per year and the benefit of this money was that most of our tuition came from financial aid. They have a restriction on how much you give in-state tuition waivers versus out-of-state. Most of our employees who apply now are Metro.  Most likely next fall when we give the tuition waivers it will be that most Metro people will not get a three-hour credit class. They will get the equivalent of three credit hours of in-state tuition, which will be almost half of the tuition.  Most of the people who apply for these classified staff tuition waivers are just barely making ends meet. In-state applicants do not have a problem because there are less in-state people applying for these waivers. The cut-off is the out-of-state people, we cannot give more than (maximum) six and this money (WSAZ) used to be very handy when there is somebody who really needs it. Even if it is not a full course waiver you could give at least half the money. There were some concern and discussion continued. 

With there being no further business, meeting was adjourned.