FY14 Staff Compensation Increase Update - Memo from President Gamble and Request for Staff Feedback

To All Non-Represented Staff,

On November 1 Staff Alliance members received a memorandum from UA President Pat Gamble regarding the staff compensation increase for the FY14 budget. He has included a 3.25% compensation increase in the operating budget being brought before the Board of Regents Wednesday Nov. 7 for their approval.

Please go the Staff Alliance blog at: http://www.uastaffalliance.wordpress.com to read President Gamble's explanation and to tell us what you think of this compensation increase. To submit your feedback, click on the words ‘Leave a Comment’ located on the grey bar immediately below the message.  We will report back on how the Regents vote.

Alliance has also started a conversation on with President Gamble on other ways to meaningfully compensate and reward staff. Please use the blog to provide us with your thoughts and ideas.  You can post your feedback on the blog using the blue 'Leave a Comment' link located below the message.   

UA Staff Alliance

Staff Council - June 2012 Highlights

• Staff Council elected a new President and Vice President for the upcoming year. Congratulations to Juella Sparks, President and Claudia Koch, Vice President. 
• Staff Alliance put forth a request to the President to use 5.5% place holder in the FY14 Budget request for staff compensation. Staff Alliance will have their annual retreat in August at which time there will be an election of officers for the upcoming year. 
• Health Care Task Force has now been established with 11 members. The task force will be encouraged to create a website to keep staff informed of the process. 
• Chancellor Rogers: 1. New Engineering Building will connect College of Engineering and Mines to the Bunnell Building. 2. First time the legislature has allocated monies for research. 3. Fundinbg for the heat and power plant will be requested in the FY14 budget. 4. A public/private partnership has been established to expand the Wood Center dining and to replace the Lola Tilly Commons. 5. Possible 2% tuition increase. 
• Jennifer Reynolds, Faculty Senate President - There is an effort to institute an electronic faculty reporting system. The system can be used to report: a. University performance b. Unit performance c. Outreach activities, detailed review and d. Who taught a specific course. Two software programs were reviewed by faculty and the program that will be viewed more in depth is Faculty 180 from Data 180.  This program is only being reviewed by UAF at this time and a selected few faculty members will participate in a pilot program using the software. If the program works as hoped it will go into effect for UAF and possibly all MAU's. Implementation is a concern; however, UAF faculty has a good relationship with the Provost Office and Dana Thomas and believes this program will be beneficial to the administration and faculty. 

Staff Council - April 2012 Highlights

Staff Health Care Committee discussed how effective a Patient Care addition may be to the current compensation package, where it would be, and who would pay for it.  Clinics on campus are being re-looked at and Chancellor Rogers believes it can be done.  There is currently no tobacco policy in place.  Chancellor Rogers wants the tobacco surcharge on new hires beginning July 1, 2012.  Committee members were tasked to reach out to individuals who use tobacco products to gather suggestions/incentives/comments on how to encourage users to quit.

President Gamble agreed to establish a Healthcare Task Force.  This would be a one-time task force.  The task force will not replace the Joint Health Care Committee or the Staff Health Care Committee, it will look outside the box, consider options, review and research plans.  The goal of the committee is to have proposals in by the end of August for proposed changes to take place and decided upon in December 2012.  The committee will have equal number of staff, faculty and administration.

Chancellor Rogers commented on how the current legislative session went great and the University came out ahead.  Their focus will be on some long standing issues such as the sewer lines and moving some parking lots.  Funds have been provided for advising, new programs, honors programs, 50% of staff raises, repairs to the engineering building, etc.  The voices heard the loudest were those not directly associated with the University.  He visited the Northwest campus and Chukchi campus in support of those partnerships.  He mentioned that it is important to attend any of the Staff Appreciation events this year and if a supervisor tell you no, you need to refer that issue to his office.

To-date there have been 160 signatures collected on the Health Care petition created by the Staff Affairs committee.  The signed copies of the petition have been submitted to UAF Staff Council President, Pips Veazey, to forward to Staff Alliance and Chancellor Rogers.  Signatures are still being collected.  There have been staff who have voiced a concern about signing the petition because of repercussions they may face from the administration.  For those who are concerned about repercussions they have been encouraged to visit the blogsite and place a comment anonymously.

A survey was conducted regarding the Code of Conduct sent out by President Gamble to all staff.  To-date there have been over 640 comments/responses submitted.  As of today the code of conduct has been unofficially withdrawn with a comment that President Gamble will work with governance in creating Institutional Values.

Chancellors Cornerstone Award – there were 91 nominations.  The committee reviewed all nominations and submitted four staff members to Chancellor Rogers for a decisions, along with recommendations for increasing the award prizes.  Committee felt the award for the Chancellors Cornerstone was deficit in comparison to other awards.

A system governance retreat will be held in June 2012 those in attendance will include President Gamble, Donald Smith, etc.

There are no changes to the University’s tuition waiver at this time, Standard Academic Progress (SAP) is the holdup.  Staff Affairs is beginning to work on a document that will be geared toward staff.

Thank you to all those who provided their notes to be included in this blogsite.

Health Care Petition - Comments

We, as the employees of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, want to express our concern that staff are not feeling valued. Health care costs are increasing at an alarming rate, longevity and loyalty do not appear to be rewarded by the administration, and current compensation packages make it challenging to sustain a family.


The healthcare increases implemented for FY 13 will be detrimental to the University’s efforts to recruit and retain staff. We request that the University system seek to mitigate these costs for FY 14 to prevent a competitive disadvantage among peer institutions and other state agencies. We furthermore ask to see additional choices developed to preserve our current PPO options, and incorporate Health Savings Accounts, Supplemental Insurance options, HMO options, and innovative solutions to broaden choice and potentially reduce costs.

To sign this petition either see your UAF Staff Council representative or see Mary Sue Dates at 110 Eielson Bldg.  For rural sites please email your comments to marysue@alaska.edu

Budget & Compensation Revisited

A 4.5% "grid increase" has been requested for the FY2010 budget and it will probably be the last time a "grid increase" is used to include our step increases within the budget request. It looks like the System will not be going back to the old way of doing step increases. Other options are being investigated. The Staff Compensation Task Force (SCTF) is looking into other ideas, including merit-based raises, using an end-of-year bonus concept, and others. They are always looking for ideas, so feel free to pass them on if you have one.

There is also a high probability that health care premiums will be going up as early as July 1, 2009. There is still discussion and calculations to be made to determine exactly how much the increase will be; we will let you know as soon as we hear anything.

Another item SCTF is working on is the fact that the "grid increase" request for FY2010 is 4.5%. Being that the request is based on cost-of-living in Anchorage, which is currently already at 4.6%, the chance that the new rates almost definitely won't cover the cost-of-living increase in addition to the health care premium increase is incredibly high. The SCTF is meeting next week and hope to get some answers and ideas.