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.

Staff Affairs - April 2 Meeting

Health Care:
It was agreed there is need to be more options.  The committee discussed the option of Higher Dedcutible Health Plan (HDHP) with a Health Savings Account (HSA).  To have the health savings account the pharmacy  plan would need to be re-worked.  It is not clear to us, as we have not had the time to do much research, this would be a great option of UAF staff.  The health savings account allows you to make withdrawals outside of medical expenses and the amount in the HSA rolls over every year; neither of these are an option with the flexible spending account.

The committee agreed to create a petition for staff to sign expressing our concerns about health care and how staff feels devalued in the lack of fight for them by the administration.  It is agreed the petition would not be electronic as it is important to get actual signatures.  The petition will also provide represented staff and faculty to sign showing support of the unrepresented staff.  Once the petition has been approved by the UAF Staff Council President, it will be sent out to all staff council representatives to staff signatures.

As signatures are gathered completed pages will be provided to the UAF Staff Council President and Vice President with a request to provide copies of the signed petition to the Joint Health Care Committee, President Gamble, Chancellor Rogers, the Board of Regents, etc.

Tuition Waiver:
Discussion about the possible changes to the tuition waiver recognize the increase in benefits with the increase in possible credit hours taken each semester and each academic year.  However, concerns were voiced about capping credit hours and that the waiver would fall under the Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) for students.  The committee agreed to revew the proposed changes and SAP, then come back to the next meeting (April 16) to discuss a written outline such as SAP.  The outline would be reflective of staff using the tuition waiver.

Tobacco Policy:
The committee is in favor of a Tobacco Free Campus and not a Tobacco Free Hiring Policy.  It was stated UAKJobs has already instituted the Tobacco Free Hiring with a question asking if the applicant or any depedent living in the household uses tobacco.  Before going further in action to draw up a motion, it was decided a member of the committee would contact UAF Human Resources to verify the UAKJobs information.  See Staff Council Notes regarding this issue.

Faculty Senate Comments

Cathy Cahill, Faculty Senate President, was present via telephone at the UAF Staff Council meeting of November 16.  She provided the following information:

• Faculty is reviewing UAF policy that affect academics and the faculty.  They are only reviewing the UAF Human Resources policies being review are those that directly affect faculty.
• Accreditation cycle is back in swing.
• Discussion about breaking commencement from one into two.  Considering a separate commencement for Masters and PhD students.  This is a very real possibility.
• Legislative forum, Interior Delegation, to come to UAF campus November 30.

Emergency Management Policy

Kris Racina, Human Resources Director, is working on an Emergency Management Policy. This policy is a result of the lesson learned from the Ice Storm last fall and the emergency exercise this summer. The policy will address what action should be taken and how supervisors should work with their employees in regards of missed work hours.

United Way Campaign

Last year 215 employees contributed to the United Way campaign. This year, campaign co-chairs Lael and Mark Oldmixon will work to increase that number to 300. This year UAF Human Resources will be distributing the contribution forms. Your department will be contacted to set up agency presentations for your unit, or you can call Lael Oldmixon at 474-6679, or Mark Oldmixon at 474-6027 to arrange for a brief presentation during the Oct. 11-22 timeframe. Please e-mail lmoldmixon@alaska.edu or mtoldmixon@alaska.edu with questions."

Kris Racina - HR Director

UAF Staff Council would like to welcome Kris Racina. She is the new HR Director and was able to attend our March 20th meeting. During her attendance she shared her philosphy for HR. She believes Human Resources is a support function. It is a means to an end and it is there to assist UAF in meeting the mission statement in balancing campus missions, complying with State and Federal Laws. HR should be a resource to encourage working out of issues between supervisors and employees. Termination should be a last resort.

When asked about the staff levels at UAF HR, she stated that was not an immediate concern as there were some restructuring and cross training that could be done to alliveate some of the bottleneck.

New UAF Human Resource Director

The position for UAF HR Director has been filled by Kris Racina. Kris has been serving the needs of UAF HR (as well as the other MAUs) in her capacity as the Statewide Director of Labor and Employee Relations. John Duhamel, Interim HR Director, projects that she will begin her new position March 2, 2009 and would like to thank everyone for their support and patience while serving as the interim director.

resource: HR Update Newsletter