Agenda — May 1, 1996
9:30 a.m.–Meeting, Assembly Room of Wilson Library
I. Call to Order
II. Welcome Guests
III. Opening Remarks
* Chancellor Michael Hooker—State of the University
IV. Special Presentations
* Tom Hocking, Chair, Compensation and Benefits Committee
* Drake Maynard, Director of Human Resources Administration, on In-Range Salary Adjustments
V. Employee Presentations—Kay Spivey
=> Michael Williamson, Janet Tysinger at Community Meeting May 30
VI. Approval of Minutes of the April 3, 1996 meeting
VII. Chair’s Report (Executive Committee): Ann Hamner
* Norm Loewenthal New Executive Committee Representative from Division 1
* Tom Hocking To Resign from University; Need for New Executive Committee Representative from Division 7
* University Council Proposal; Lunch Group with Jane Brown, Aaron Nelson, Katherine Kraft
* Decision Made to Publish Proposed Resolutions Before Students Leave April 24
* Follow-Up Via E-Mail by Tommy Brickhouse on Housekeepers’ Mail Situation
* Recommendation for Use of Staff Development Fund for Career Counselor Position Forwarded to Chancellor Hooker
* Legislative Priorities, Board of Governors Final Report on Privatization and State Appropriations Comparisons Available in Forum Office
* Silhouette of 1996 Forum Portrait
* Executive Committee Meeting with Executive Committee of N.C. State University Staff Senate April 11
* Forum Chair’s Presentation at North Carolina Central University April 12
* Diversity Conference April 26
VIII. Unfinished Business
* Suggested Change to Administrative Code Regarding Adverse Weather
IX. New Business
* Proposed Resolution Regarding Efforts to Improve Housekeepers’ Situation
* Proposed Resolution Regarding Privatization (Based on N.C. State Staff Senate Resolution)
* Recommendation that Reports Needing Consideration and Action by the Forum Must be Included in Monthly Agenda Packet
* Invitations to Dick Richardson and Aaron Nelson to Give Separate Special Presentations to the Forum
X. Committee/Task Force Reports: Goals for the Year
* Nominating—Dianne Crabill
* Orientation—Leon Hamlett
* Personnel Policies—Peter Schledorn
* Compensation and Benefits—Tom Hocking
* Public Affairs—Helen Iverson
* Recognition and Awards—Nancy Klatt/Pamela Shoaf
* University Committee Assignments—Vicki Lotz/Jennifer Pendergast
* Career Development—Sharon Cheek
* Pan-University Task Force —Ned Brooks
* Employee Appreciation Fair Booth Task Force—Marshall Wade
=> Plans, Sign-Up for Forum Booth at Employee Appreciation Fair
* Faculty Council Liaisons
* Partner Benefits—Peter Schledorn
* Legislative Affairs—Laresia Farrington/Tom Hocking
XI. Human Resources Update
* Laurie Charest, Vice Chancellor, Human Resources
XII. Announcements/Questions
XIII. Adjournment
Please don’t forget our brown bag lunch scheduled after the meeting
If we’re lucky, we can eat outside under Carolina blue skies; if not, we’ve reserved room 210 in the student union
Hope to see you there!
MINUTES
May 1, 1996
Delegates Present
Eddie Capel
Sharon Cheek
Peggy Cotton
Mona Couts
Dianne Crabill
Kathy Dutton
Laresia Farrington
Thomas Goodwin
Tommy Griffin, Jr.
Tommy Gunter
Leon Hamlett
Ann Hamner
Tom Hocking
Helen Iverson
Delores Jarrell
Nancy Klatt
Bobbie Lesane
Ruth Lewter
Norman Loewenthal
Sue Morand
Tommy Nixon
Rosa Nolen
Jennifer Pendergast
Archie Phillips, Jr.
Sarah Rimmer
Peter Schledorn
George Sharp
Kay Spivey
Reba Sullivan
Alice Taylor
Janet Tysinger
Marshall Wade, Jr.
Chien-Hsin Wagner
Betty Watkins
Mary Woodall
Laurie Charest”
Rachel Windham”
” = Ex-Officio
Delegates Absent
Frank Alston
Mary Alston
Ned Brooks
Willie Mae Davis
Donna Gerringer
Vicki Lotz
Lynn Ray
Burke Riggsbee
Pamela Shoaf
Beverly Williams
Alternates Present
Tommy Brickhouse
Ann Dodd
Frank DiMauro
Laura Grady
Ruby Massey
Creola Scurlock
Cheryl Stout
Cary White
Guests
Margaret Balcom
Elson Floyd
Betsy Hall
Michael Hooker
Mike Hobbs
Michael Klein
Mitch Kokai
Ruby Massey
Paula Schubert
Call to Order and Welcome to Guests
Chair Ann Hamner called the meeting to order at 9:30 a.m. She thanked Jack Stone for bringing of Employee Fair Appreciation Booth buttons to Forum members.
The Chair welcomed Chancellor Michael Hooker to give the meeting’s opening remarks on the State of the University. Chancellor Hooker reported that:
“I’m pleased to report that the University is in great shape. Over the course of this my first year, I have been constantly gratified by the enormous strength that I find here, and that is something that we should all be gratified by as well. What we tend to focus on, appropriately, is the problems that we are aware of. Because we are focused on our problems, we tend, understandably, to overlook or not adequately celebrate our successes and our strengths, which are phenomenal relative to just about any other university you would like to select for comparison. It is important for us from time to time to step back and recognize that.
“Higher education–I have said until people are beginning to tire of hearing me say it–is going to go through a period of phenomenal change over the coming decade or two. It is not clear how long these changes are going to take fully to play themselves out. It is going to be a turbulent period for everybody; us included. But we are blessed to go into this period of change with enormous strength, and that strength will buffer the effects of change so that the turbulence that we suffer will not be as great, I think, as that for most institutions.
“It is hard to look around and find anything at Carolina that is significantly broken and in need of repair. We have a very strong faculty–the strongest in the South by far. We have a very strong staff. We have a very strong student body. We are as competitive in admitting students from out-of-state as Harvard. We are, by far, the most competitive in-state institution.
We have a very strong physical plant, and that is something we tend to overlook because we are aware of the faucet that doesn’t work, the roof that leaks or the floor tile that needs to be replaced. But, if you compare us with any other institution that I have visited–and I have visited over a hundred colleges and universities–we have the best maintained physical plant. We have fewer deferred maintenance problems than any institution that I am aware of, but we still do have some deferred maintenance problems.
“We have a very sound financial base. Everybody is aware of the success of the capital campaign–Carolina’s first capital campaign. Success went beyond anybody’s expectation when it began. I am happy to tell you that the fund-raising momentum has not let up, and that in itself is very unusual in a year following a capital campaign. Typically, universities slide back a little. We haven’t. We have sustained the same high level of momentum that we had in the last year of the capital campaign, which gives me confidence that we will be able to plan over the next four or five years for a much larger capital campaign–something on the order of a billion dollars.
“Also in the yearly struggle with the state legislature to acquire better funding for ourselves, especially in the area of salaries, it is easy to overlook the fact that we are the best funded public university in the country. North Carolina places a higher premium on public higher education than any other state in the nation. And that is something to celebrate. I can tell you if the legislature did not value us, if we were in the position of other states that I have been associated with in my career, life would not be nearly as comfortable for us as it is.
“How do I measure funding in public universities to show that we are the highest. What is highest here is the ratio of per capita tax revenue (that is state tax dollars raised per capita, which is a measure of available funds for allocation to the state’s priorities) compared with per capita funding (that is how much money the state gives us per student enrolled here). That ratio, which is a ratio of expenditures per student to available tax dollars for allocation, is the highest in the nation. That is something to be very pleased about.
“An area where I am less satisfied is in the area of salaries, and there we face the question of what kind of pay raise is the state going to allocate for us this year in the short session. I wish I knew. “The issue really will be, as it always is, how much revenue the legislature has to allocate. The way you know how much money you have in the budget to allocate is by looking at available revenues which are, of course, a forecast. They are a forecast of tax revenues from the various sources of taxation that supply revenue to the state, based on the current taxation revenue picture and a reasonable projection for economic growth in personal income, in corporate income, etc.
“What makes the situation a little cloudy this year is that revenue growth has been a little slower than anticipated, even though North Carolina’s economy is among the healthiest in the nation. The projections were slightly ahead of reality, but only slightly. What makes the situation most cloudy this year is that it is an election year and the issue of tax cuts has arisen. You and I both understand that there is a mood in the country not to increase taxes but to decrease taxes. This is a very strong mood among the public–in fact, some of us in the room might share the mood–that it would be nice to see our taxes decreased. Legislators and governors who are elected have to listen to the mood of the public. So, it is reasonable to believe that there will be various tax cut proposals introduced to the legislature in the short session and it would be hard to picture anybody voting against them because they have to run for re-election this year. One would vote against a tax-cut proposal if it came to the floor only at one’s own peril.
“I suspect that there will be some tax cut. How much tax cut, of course, will directly affect the available revenue for allocation to salaries. For example, there is a proposal to reduce the food tax by one percentage point. That would, I think, have a revenue consequence of about $85 million. Each percentage increase in state wages accounts for about $67 million. So a one cent cut in the food tax knocks out more than a one percent increase in wages. You can begin to do the arithmetic. We have by most estimates somewhere between $250 million and $270 million in recurring new revenues for allocation. You can begin to figure what kind of pay raise the legislature could give, and how a tax cut would affect that. As I said, nobody knows what is going to happen, but it is possible to do some arithmetic–some scenario building on your own–based on the present revenue forecasts, the cost of each percentage increase in state wages and the passion that the public has for a tax cut.
“We are fortunate going into next year, whatever the state allocation, to have the benefit of substantial revenues–about $9 million–that will be raised from the students via the tuition increase that the legislature enabled the Board of Trustees to pass this year. Unfortunately, the bill that enabled the tuition increase restricted the use of the proceeds from the tuition increase to faculty salary increases only, to student financial aid and to the library. But, because student financial aid is an important part of our budget and funds there are fungible, there will be some relief coming from the student financial aid increase that comes from the tuition revenue; similarly for faculty pay raises and library support. So that we will all benefit, but we will not benefit to the extent we would have had the funds been entirely fungible, that is capable of being applied to highest priorities whatever the Board of Trustees deemed those to be.
“There has been a lot of concern about our breaking our covenant with the people by raising tuition because the state constitution and the University charter mandate that education should be available to the citizens of North Carolina at the lowest possible cost and/or as nearly free as possible. We have always prided ourselves on having the lowest tuition in the country. It is important to note that with our 40 percent increase in tuition, we will still be probably the lowest state university flagship campus in the country depending upon what the University of Arizona does with tuition next year. They could be slightly lower than us. But if we aren’t the lowest, we will be the second lowest in the country, which tells me we are still maintaining our covenant with the people.
“The covenant itself is something that needs to be examined so that we can be assured that we are actually carrying out the intent of the covenant. The idea was that higher education should be accessible by all of North Carolina’s citizens. There are two ways to ensure that. One is to, as nearly as possible, provide free education. We do not do that; we have a substantial tuition charge. We will be charging almost $2,000 for state residents next year. Clearly somebody who is penurious cannot come here without financial assistance. So we provide financial aid. That is the other way to provide education to all of North Carolina’s citizens, the way we choose to do it, which is by providing financial aid to those who otherwise can’t afford it.
“That raises the question whether the university if given the authorization to do so should raise tuition in the future. That’s a question which needs to be thoughtfully examined. Heretofore, it hasn’t been. It is an emotional issue, and the emotion tends to drive out the opportunity for thoughtful examination of the issue.
“For example, something that is not widely discussed is that our average family income for North Carolina students coming to Chapel Hill is just about twice the average family income for all state residents. That means that on the whole people in lower income brackets are subsidizing the education of people in higher income brackets. That is a fact that nobody ever discusses when we pride ourselves on our low tuition, but it is a fact; and it raises a moral and philosophical issue, for me at least, whether that is morally appropriate, or whether some other mechanism shouldn’t be found to obviate that burden on people of lower income to subsidize the education of people in higher income groups. “We face a very great challenge, which this institution has not yet embraced and begun to grapple with, which some institutions that are less well funded and less stable financially have already begun to grapple with. That is the question of reallocating resources from areas of low priority to areas of high priority. All things being equal, we could probably duck that issue for quite some time to come, but we will not be able to because we will feel pressure from the legislature to accommodate a national change of mood that is focusing attention on how well public institutions spend their resources.
“What has happened nationally is that a movement that has affected corporations for the last 20 years has begun to affect the public sector. It is what I call the Denning Revolution (for W. Edwards Denning, the management consultant whose voice spoke very loudly in Japan during the post-war reconstruction of the economy). Denning said a corporation, in order to be competitive, should always be asking the question: How can we be doing things better, faster and cheaper? That is, to strive continuously to produce the product or provide the service at a lower cost, in less time and with greater quality.
“Those sound like tradeoffs to most people. If you are going to do it faster, it is going to cost you more. If you are going to produce better quality, it is going to cost you more. Deming said, no! You can have higher quality in less time at lower cost if you look to perfecting your processes. That philosophy brought about a revolution in the economy of Japan, which enabled Japanese corporations to gain market dominance in every market that they played in and which then eventually led to the recognition on the part of American companies, the automobile and steel industries being first among them, that we had best play the Deming game of re-engineering all of our processes to accomplish things better, faster, cheaper if we were going to compete in a world economy with Japanese corporations, and with German corporations which had begun to implement the Deming philosophy as well.
“I don’t need to tell you that that simple question–how do we do things better, faster and cheaper–has brought about a phenomenal change in American corporations. By asking those questions, we have begun to regain market positions in the world economy. The U. S. economy now is very strong in the world economy as a result of our embracing the Deming Revolution.
“The revolution has also found its way into the health care arena, driven by the recognition that health care costs couldn’t keep growing at the rate that they were going. The health care industry offers a good model for higher education because health care used to compete on quality as we do in higher education with no attention to the cost-quality ratio. The idea was simply to drive up quality at whatever cost because the public, needing health care, was willing to pay the cost of health care whatever it was. What the public wanted was the highest possible quality. And, more often than not, that has been the case in education. What the public has wanted is the highest possible quality and has begrudgingly been willing to pay the cost of that quality. “Higher education is going to undergo the Deming Revolution, and it is going to be forced to do so to by legislatures, because the whole public sector, the whole government sector, driven largely, I’d say, by David Osborne’s book Reinventing Government, has begun to ask the question how can public agencies do things better, faster, cheaper. That leads to the recognition that if we are going to do things better, we need sometimes to re-invest, or to invest new resources, in areas that will enable us to do things better or faster–in particular technology.
“Technology is an investment that corporations have made because they recognize that it directly affects productivity. Governments have been unwilling to make investments in technology heretofore because it was part of the culture of government that agencies enjoyed budget increases but not budget decreases. In order to invest in new technology, it requires massive new revenues, which public agencies have not enjoyed, especially because of the tax payer revolt. So, not having new revenues and not having a culture that supported the reallocation of resources, government agencies have been reluctant to invest in technology.
“We can no longer in higher education afford not to make that investment. Here is one area where Carolina does lag behind our competition, and that is investments for technology to improve productivity. The rule of thumb is that you should be investing about 5 percent annually of your operating budget in technology. We invest more like 2 percent–less than half of what the rule of thumb says that we should invest.
“How can we change that; how can we begin to invest at the same level as our competition? Well, we have already looked at the revenue picture from the state legislature. It is unreasonable to expect that the state budget anytime in the near future will give us a massive infusion of funds to invest in technology and add to the base of our budget. That means we are going to have to find resources internally through reallocation to invest in technology. That means again that we must begin to prioritize what we do, recognize what is of lower priority than new investments in technology and move resources from low priority areas into technology and other areas of high priority, so that we can keep abreast of the competition.
“That means when we move resources from an area of low priority that priority is not going to be as well funded in the future, which means that either it will have to cease all together–we will have to stop doing whatever it is–or we will have to consolidate that program or activity with other things that we are doing that will enable economies of scale, thus freeing up resources, or that we will have downsize that activity–emphasize it less so that we don’t have to spend as much money on it.
“That is an enormous challenge in higher education, because the culture does not easily accommodate the idea that some things are less important than other things and that those things that are of less importance should experience a loss of revenue in order to feed those things that are of greater importance.
“But, if you step back and ask the question that I have been asking of us all for the last 10 months, that is, how do we best serve the people of North Carolina then you have a possible principle of resource re-allocation driven by the moral imperative we have to serve the people of North Carolina. That enables you to begin to make judgments about things that we do, simply following the principle what is of more importance to the people of North Carolina, and that gives you a principle for judging the importance of the things that we do, hence developing a list of priorities.
“That is a powerful question: What best serves the people of North Carolina? It is a question that public institutions do not often enough ask, what best serves the people of the State that supports them. But, we must remember that the only justification for our being here, the only justification for the pay that you and I receive, is that what we do serves the people of North Carolina. We are taking money directly out of the pocket of the factory worker in Iredell County to feed to my salary and yours. The only justification for taking money out of the pocket of the factory worker or a farmer in Iredell County is what we are doing serves the State.
“We should constantly be asking whether we are employing our resources in the best possible way to serve the people of North Carolina. When we begin to ask that question, a very powerful question, we will, I promise you, develop a list of priorities.
“To go back to the point from which I began, the fundamental strength of this institution, let me say again, that we are blessed to be entering this period of turbulent change in higher education in a fundamentally strong position. That gives us the luxury of asking questions such as what should be our priorities and answering those questions deliberatively with the full participation of the entire community. I look forward to working with the Employee Forum in the year ahead as we begin to prioritize our activities and ask the question how can we better serve the people of North Carolina.”
The Chair opened the floor for questions. Tommy Nixon asked what were the prospects for increasing the overall University endowment? The Chancellor responded that “the prospects are very good. You know that we came through the Bicentennial fund-raising campaign in great shape, having exceeded our goal and then resetting the goal, and exceeding the reset goal. As I said, fund-raising this year has not followed the pattern that you would expect for universities after a campaign. In a year following a campaign, typically there is about a 20 percent fall off in revenues. We have had no fall-off whatsoever. We will finish this year at or ahead of where we did last year. That gives me hope that we can look fairly quickly–I say five years–to a billion dollar capital campaign, which will significantly increase the University’s endowment. No university, though, should look to private fund raising to substitute for resource reallocation. It can supplement, augment and enhance, but not substitute for resource reallocation.
Ruth Lewter asked “in light of the recent announcement that DHR is losing in excess of 1,000 positions and that Gov. Hunt may announce a mandate of a 10 percent across the board reduction in positions, what is the University doing to ward off such a threat to this campus?” The Chancellor replied that “I am not aware–and maybe I have just missed something in the newspaper–that there has been discussion of a mandate that the university reduce personnel. I would rather respond to question by reframing the question.
“In the face of change, there are two fundamental responses. One, which I pejoratively call the bureaucratic response, is to figure out how to build higher seawalls to keep change away. The other response, which I call the entrepreneurial response, is to polish your surfboard. I would rather ask how can we polish our surfboard.
What Gov. Hunt is doing is laudable. It is high time that governments begin to ask the question What are our priorities and how do we finance them? One of Gov. Hunt’s priorities is Smart Start. He needs a lot more money for Smart Start than state revenues will provide. So one of the things he is doing is prioritizing. He has said that Human Resources has in it expenditures that cannot be justified when stood against Smart Start. He asks which is in the greater interest to the people of North Carolina. He has said he is going to move money from Human Resources to Smart Start and other priorities of his, and that is responsible thing to do.
What we should be doing is asking how can we do what Gov. Hunt is doing, which is better serving the people of North Carolina by moving resources from areas of lower priority to areas of higher priority–areas that are more important to the people of North Carolina. And, I say, we have the luxury of being able to take the time to ask that question deliberatively and deliberately, and to answer it for ourselves. We are not in extremis; we are not in a financial crisis. But, if we don’t act responsibly, I maintain, by asking of ourselves how can we do things better, faster, cheaper, how we can better serve the people of North Carolina, then we will lose the luxury of being able to answer the question for ourselves, because we will be legislatively mandated in various ways to act in accordance with legislatively perceived answers to that question.
George Sharp noted that “during the past five or ten years, the University has fallen in annual ranking that come out in U. S. News & World Report. What credence do you give those rankings?” The Chancellor answered that “It doesn’t matter what credence I give them. The world accords them a great deal of credence and we have to be sensitive to that. If you look at U. S. News & World Report since the rankings first came out, you do see that we have fallen from, I think, seventh or eighth in the very first ranking to the point now where we are 27th in last fall’s ranking.
“That looks like a plunge rather than a slide. But the truth is the U. S. News & World Report `s first ranking was simply a popularity contest. It reflected the image that presidents and chancellors held of universities. It is wonderful to know that we are so well regarded that presidents and chancellors when asked to rate universities by quality would put us seventh or eighth. U. S. News & World Report was severely criticized for publicizing what was a beauty contest as if it had objective validity. Singed by that criticism, it began to work to achieve objective validity for the study, to the point where it now measures universities on a very sophisticated array of indices which compare them objectively one with another. It is by virtue of that sophisticated array of indices that we come out 27th.
“Why did we slide so much when objective criteria were applied for evaluation? If you look at the ratings, there are only three public universities that are ahead of us. They are Virginia, which is 19th; Michigan, which is about 24th; Berkeley, which is 26th; and Carolina, which is 27th. So no public university does well. But, you know by looking at the list that Carolina, Virginia, Berkeley and Michigan are really quite better than some of those institutions that are ranked higher than we on the basis of the criteria that US News & World Report uses.
“What that tells you is that there is built-in bias in the report toward private universities. If you begin to look for the bias, you find it. An example is this: the report measures alumni satisfaction as one measure of quality of a university. How do they discern alumni satisfaction? By percentage of alumni who contribute annually to the institution’s fund-raising programs. Two things should be noted:
*One is that private universities, because they rely to a much greater extent than public universities on philanthropy, begin the business of private fund raising as soon as the student matriculates and never let up. They invest a great deal more than public universities do. That’s the first fact that creates a disparity between the two categories of institutions. Private universities place greater emphasis on fund raising, and that results in a larger percentage of alumni contributions.
*The other disparity is created by the fact that there is substantial difference between the socio-economic profile of the average student attending a private university versus that attending a public university. At Duke University, it costs $25,000 a year for a student to go there; we cost about $10,000 a year when you factor in tuition, room and board and other expenses. So, there has to be, all things being equal, a substantial family income differential between people who go to public universities and people who go to private universities. So, people who go to private universities are able to give more and typically come from a culture more inclined to philanthropy.
“So, that feeds a bias or creates a bias toward private universities. There is nothing that we can do to overcome that. What I have said we will do is focus on becoming the best of the public universities as measured by the U. S. News and World Report criteria. That is about all we can do, and then we will have to accept the fact that the public puts more stock than it should in the U. S. News and World Report ranking and we are not going to occupy the position we once occupied.
“One of the areas that U. S. News and World Report measures, for example, is per student funding overall, how much money you spend per student on education. While we have the highest per student funding relative to available tax revenues of any state in the union, because our tuition is less than 10 percent of the tuition of private institutions, they are, ipso facto, going to have a great deal more money to spend on students than we do. So, if you go to private universities and walk into a residence hall or a classroom, you are going to see a much higher quality of carpeting on the floor and drapes on the windows than you will see in public institutions. Those are expenditures that mean the institution is spending more per student than institutions with threadbare carpet, but it doesn’t mean that the education is any better. What we are concerned with is how good the education is.
Rachel Windham asked, “If privatization is eventually forced on us, I keep hearing that we are going to save $16 million. Will we be allowed to retain the dollars that we save on this campus?” Chancellor Hooker responded: “That is a good question. I don’t think that privatization will be forced on us–at least not any time soon. I think members of the legislature understand that given the current atmosphere it would be unproductive and unwise to privatize, in particular, housekeeping. Now, there may be things that we can privatize that would not affect anybody emotionally, that would not achieve saving by reducing the salaries of people who are at subsistence level already. Maybe we can privatize the Chancellor’s Office–go out and look for a company to run the chancellor’s office–something like that that won’t threaten people. And, if we can, we will. If we can privatize activities that do not have this emotional character that the prospect of privatizing housekeeping has, we will do so.
“On the other hand, let me say about housekeeping that if you look at the study that the General Administration did, what it says is that one-third of the savings achieved by privatizing housekeeping would be achieved through bringing the pay scales down to market. Our pay for housekeepers is about 18 percent over the market for the Research Triangle area, which is the highest market level in the state. So relatively speaking, our housekeepers are paid higher than market. But, we all know that they can’t live on the pay that they make, so many of them work two jobs. So, there is a strong case to be made for raising the pay of housekeepers, but we can’t do that because they are in State pay categories. While there is some flexibility for in-range adjustment, it really doesn’t ultimately address the question of the subsistence level wages of housekeepers.
“So how could you raise the wages of housekeepers. One way that you could would be to privatize and to take the 65 percent savings you get through managerial efficiency, or whatever it is that enables the savings that is not related to pay, and you share a portion of that savings with housekeepers and hence raise the pay of housekeepers. You couldn’t do in the State personnel system, but you could do it outside the State personnel system simply by writing a contract with the private company that enabled you to do that.
“Now, I am not advocating this, but because, as I have said, the issue is so emotional that you can’t get to a rational discussion of it. But I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that the only way that I know of you could raise pay for the housekeepers is by privatizing and writing a contract that had pay scales built into it. I know you can do that because we did at the University of Maryland. The housekeepers made more money after privatization than before, because we were able to specify wage levels in the contract. This is a very difficult issue to discuss because of emotional aspects of it, but it is a complicated one that does require reflective examination.
“There is another aspect which worries me, which people just don’t discuss, that real wages are declining in low-skilled job categories throughout the country, in whatever industry or product area it is that we are talking about. You ask why it is that the case? The reason it is the case is that we have outsourced to other countries, with much lower wage rates, so much of our low-skilled jobs in this country. In 1950, 80 percent of the American workforce was employed in manufacturing; now 13 percent of the American workforce is employed in manufacturing. Most of those jobs, the bulk of those jobs, were in fairly low skilled areas, but very high-paying jobs. The average manufacturing wage for an American worker today is about $85 a day; the average manufacturing wage for an Indonesian worker is $3 a day. Jobs are being outsourced to Indonesia and other countries in Southeast Asia where the education level is as good, the work ethic is better. (Those are Moslem countries; they have no drug problem, no alcohol problem, no absentee problem because people are so pleased to have the jobs.) It is not surprising that American companies are going to outsource as many jobs as they can to those countries. We as consumers benefit because we have higher quality products at lower costs than we otherwise would. Nobody can argue that we haven’t all benefited from foreign competition in automobiles.
“Now this phenomena of outsourcing has left the low skilled sector and is moved up to high skilled sector. For example, the Lotus Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a software company now wholly owned by IBM, has begun outsourcing the writing of software to India where wage rates for people who are trained at the master’s and Ph. D. level in software engineering are about one-third of what they are in the United States. So the information revolution is enabling American companies to outsource to lower wage countries even high skilled jobs.
What that means, at least for the low skilled sector–the people who used to be in manufacturing–is that there is labor surplus in the United States and that means there is going to be a regression to the mean for world labor rates, which nobody can do anything about. You can’t outsource housekeeping to Indonesia, obviously. But, as long as there is a surplus of low skilled labor in the United States , you are going to find wages going down. As a matter of public policy, we recognize that you can’t pay American workers the mean globally. But since we are only 4 1/2 percent of the world’s population, we pale in comparison when you start averaging. You couldn’t regress American wages to $5-6 a day–that is unthinkable so as a matter of public policy, we have to decide what is acceptable in the environment of global market competition, and we have to figure out how to engineer wages in such a way as to enable people to maintain a subsistence in a global market competition.
That is one of the reasons that I say it is going to be a very turbulent period for the next 20 years, because we have developed a world economy, a global economy and because jobs will be outsourced–high skill/low skill–to areas of lowest wage rates. Now ultimately everybody is going to benefit from the development of a knowledge-based, global economy; productivity is going to skyrocket; the whole world is going to better off; it is going to be a happy day, but it is going to be absolute chaos getting from here to there. We just need to be sophisticated and recognize that and figure out locally how to deal with it. We have to think globally and act locally. We have to act locally but in the context of a recognition of these global phenomena. There is a lot more to say about that. We need to be answering it in a very sophisticated way.
The only way that we can ultimately save the standard of living in this country for us all is by educating everybody, by making American a center of high skilled, high wage labor. But, what is happening right now still is that we are developing a bipolar distribution of the population along the lines of education and income. At the one pole, we have the educated affluent and at the other pole the undereducated, underskilled poor–and the middle is disappearing. People who work at universities may be the last vestiges of the educated poor, but for the most part the populations are migrating to the two poles–the educated affluent at one in a knowledge-based economy and the undereducated, underskilled poor at the other.
What we have to do as a matter of national priority is move the whole population over to the educated, affluent end of the spectrum. In a global economy there is no reason you can’t do that. It is just a matter of political will and sophisticated understanding of what is in our own best economic interest. In a global economy, the only competitive advantage that a national economy will have is the way that it develops it brain power.
Having low-waged, low skilled labor available to you might help ramp up the economy of Indonesia, but it certainly not going to help ramp up the economy of the U.S. The only way we can continue economic growth is by investing in education and moving everybody over to educated affluent end of the social spectrum. You can do that in a global economy; you couldn’t do it if you didn’t have a global economy. I get passionate about this because you don’t hear these things discussed by politicians running for office because it means reordering priorities and re-investing and instead of tax cuts it probably means tax increases to invest in education to buy to an economic future for our children.
The Chair thanked Chancellor Hooker for taking the time to address the Forum.
The Chair introduced Compensation and Benefits Chair Tom Hocking to give a special presentation on Salary Compression. The Chair noted that this would be Tom’s last meeting since he would resign from the University in mid-May.
Tom noted that UNC-Chapel Hill has the largest contingent of SPA Employees of all 16 campuses in the University System. Over 5,800 positions support research, instructional and public service activities. The University’s SPA Employees are subject to the same compensation policies as are other State Government Employees.
One of the major problems facing University Employees is salary compression. “Salary compression” means little or no in-range movement in one’s salary range. Since the early 1980s, this phenomenon has been a fact of life for University Employees. It boils down to a tacit non-recognition of performance or experience; no merit pay increases, except for a few years in the past decade, and compression in the bottom half of salary ranges.
To illustrate this point, Tom produced a chart depicting the plight of campus Employees which compared the number of Employees to their position in the salary range. The majority of Employees are clustered in the 20-30% level of their salary range.
This means that when individuals are hired by the University, except for across-the-board increases approved by the Legislature, they stay at essentially the same level over most of their tenure at the University.
However, this statistic improves with length of service. The longer one spends at the University the better off one tends to be. In the private sector, one reaches the mid-point of one’s salary range after about five years of employment. Here at the University, it takes an average of around ten years for an Employee to reach this mid-point. Those who stay with the University as a career tend to do better in terms of reaching the peak of their salary range.
Unfortunately, this distribution has some detrimental effects. First, there is not a great history of rewarding merit at the University. In only three years of the past decade, was performance pay awarded to University Employees. By and large, there have only been across-the-board increases averaging, over the past 5 years, approximately two percent. In 1991, there was no increase for State Employees, which was partially offset by the 4% increase granted in 1994.
Peggy Cotton asked in which years performance pay was awarded. Tom responded that these were 1986 (a 1% increase given to the University to decide how to award), 1989 (2%) and 1990 (2%). These funds were given to the University to distribute and allocate. Thus, an Employee may not have received the full performance pay increase depending on the University’s determination of distribution.
Another problem facing University Employees is the cost of living in the Chapel Hill/Triangle area, which is second only to Asheville among System institutions. This disparity in cost of living raises the concept of geographic pay. SPA workers do not make any more money just because they live in Chapel Hill rather than Winston-Salem, for example, where there is a constituent University campus. This disparity is an issue that University Employees must face in their daily lives, forcing some to commute long distances to get to of work.
One solution to this problem would be salary range adjustments. The Office of State Personnel recently approved guidelines for four State agencies to make in-range adjustments under specified conditions. Tom noted that Drake Maynard would report on the UNC-Chapel Hill’s effort concerning these guidelines later in the meeting.
However, this effort is an unfunded mandate; no State money was appropriated to pursue this goal. Agencies have permission to rectify these salary inconsistencies but receive no funds with which to work. Because departments are limited to funds on hand, the inability to implement this plan could lead to lowered morale within these departments. Similarly, the stagnation in salary range progress is a liability to morale.
If one examines the number of full-time equivalents for each fiscal year and how these positions have been reduced at the University, Employees remaining are doing their own work and that of those departed. At UNC-Chapel Hill alone, approximately 264 full-time staff equivalent positions have been reduced in the past five years. There are fewer of us, Tom said, doing more work.
Where is the solution to this “gloom and doom?”, Tom asked. The solution is the Comprehensive Pay Plan approved by the General Assembly a few years ago. Unfortunately, while the Plan was approved, funds to support it were not. With each year that the Legislature waits to grant these funds, the more money it will require to bring all Employees up to par. Even if the Legislature approves funding for the Pay Plan, the move is likely to help future Employees more than current Employees because it is unlikely that funding for the Plan would grandfather increases for Employees stuck at the bottom of their salary range.
However, the greater good demands pressure on the General Assembly in the long session to fund fully the Comprehensive Pay Plan so that salary ranges mean something. Currently, a new Employee at the University will receive the same salary for the rest of their career in the same job, except for across-the-board increases and the occasional merit increase. This situation is not encouraging to morale or long-term loyalty.
The Chair thanked Tom for his presentation and members gave him a round of applause. Eddie Capel asked if members could receive copies of the slides that Tom used in his presentation. The Chair said that the Forum Office would send the information out in the next month’s packet. As a final note, she hoped that Tom would keep the Forum informed on celestial happenings.
Drake Maynard, Director of Human Resources Administration, made the Forum’s next special presentation on a proposed In-Range Salary Adjustment Policy.The Chair had sent out e-mail previous to the meeting asking members to read the proposed Policy, included in the month’s agenda packet so that members would have enlightened questions for Drake.
Drake pointed out the serendipitous fact that the Chancellor’s, Tom’s and his presentation centered on the salary issue. He recalled Robert Preston’s character from “The Music Man,” who came to sell parents band instruments and uniforms for children who could not play a note.
Drake noted that the policy is a permissive one, meaning the University is not required to have it in place. The State Personnel Commission adopted a State-wide policy as a framework of guidelines and some requirements. Thus, the University has an opportunity to create its own policy.
Referencing Tom’s presentation, Drake noted that the past three merit increases produced little movement within salary ranges, in some cases less than 1%. There has not been in-range movement in State Government salaries, including University SPA Employees, since 1981. Salaries have increased, but Employees have not moved closer for the most part to the maximum of their range. Thus, the salary range has lost meaning. The proposed In-Range Salary Adjustment Policy gives the University the opportunity to improve this predicament.
The Policy reflects the University’s decentralized functions. The State policy was written under the assumption that most State agencies receive only State dollars, an assumption that does not fit the University. Most State agencies function in a centralized manner which is not typical of the University.
Thus, the State policy envisions the Chancellor and the Administrative Council sitting down once a year to process requests for in-range increases. This centralized processing will not happen at the University; rather, departments will decide.
The Policy has an ambitious schedule of enactment, with an ultimate goal of approval and training for implementation by July 1, 1996, which means the University needs to forward its Policy for approval by the State Personnel Commission by its June meeting. Therefore the policy must be forwarded to the Office of State Personnel by the middle of May. To that end, Drake is scheduled to present a final draft of the Policy to the Administrative Council at its May 13 meeting.
Drake noted that he and Laurie Charest had talked with all Human Resources Facilitators about the Policy at their last round of meetings. Last week, Drake had a very productive meeting with the Forum’s Personnel Policies Committee and had met also with UNC’s Policy Advisory Committee. The Policy has been disseminated to Deans, Directors and Department Heads, as well as everyone on the Forum. Drake wished to hear further comment from the Forum and other Employees.
The Legislature has not dedicated funds to implement the In-Range Adjustment Policy. Drake did not expect this to change and said that there is no big pool of University funds to support salary increases, either.
Early in the process, the Administrative Council directed that decisions for the policy be made at the lowest level possible. Drake had already incorporated comments and input from other groups mentioned earlier, and said that he would be happy to take comments and questions from the Forum assembly as well. The Policy was now in draft form, and its final form would be presented to the Administrative Council with a cover letter summarizing its contents.
Summarizing the Policy, Drake noted three exclusive bases for an In-Range Adjustment. The first is a moderate type of job change, not leading to a change in job classification or level of classification.
The second basis, recruitment retention, refers to labor market problems based on market data indicating problems keeping a job or class of jobs occupied once filled. Drake cautioned that the Policy will not replace the current Retention Salary Increase Policy, although the proposed Policy will make it easier at least to get to the 10% limit for retention salary increases.
Finally, the third basis is equity consideration, referring to situations in which qualifications or salaries of Employees in the same job class with approximately the same performance levels differ by more than 10%. Also defined as an equity consideration is when an Employee’s salary is lower in the salary range, for reasons previously explained, than one would expect for a particular length of service. For instance, an Employee with 15 years of service, under the State System expecting a 5% increase within their salary range for each year of relevant experience, should be well above the midpoint of their salary range. If that hypothetical Employee’s salary is only 20% above the minimum for their salary range, this Policy would address their situation.
The maximum increase per Employee per year under the proposed Policy is 10%. Drake asked Forum members whether a calendar, fiscal, or rolling twelve-month period would work best for implementation within their departments. The Policy could accommodate any of these periods, though it would be preferable to have one standard for the University.
Within the Policy, Drake had placed a minimum of 2% increase per adjustment as an administrative threshold. He did not know how many adjustments there would be, but noted that at some point it becomes more expensive to process the adjustments than to pay the increase. He advanced 2% increase threshold as a beginning point for discussion.
There will be a program plan administrator for the Policy based in Human Resources whose role will be to examine increases approved by departments, determining if they meet State policy under the criteria of job change, recruitment retention or equity. Drake Maynard emphasized that he did not want to be the “Czar” of In-Range Salary Adjustments. These decisions should be left to departments.
Finally, Drake proposed that the effective date for the adjustment would be the pay period in which the department approves the increase. If, for some reason, there is a flood of applications for adjustment and the program administrator takes some time in processing, the Employee in question would not be disadvantaged.
Drake offered to take questions or comments. Regarding decentralization, George Sharp noted that each department will be responsible for finding funds for these increases. He said that at the hospital, different departments have different amounts of money. It seemed that rich departments, like the Cancer Research Center, for instance, would have more money to pay its technicians more than another department whose technicians do similar work. Extended over a period of years, technicians in one department could end up making substantially more than technicians with similar responsibilities in another department. He asked if Drake had any comments.
Drake responded that a situation in which everyone pays their own way will result in these types of situations. Departments more dependent on State dollars will have less of an opportunity to fund these adjustments. All of these salary administration issues will compete with reclassification and promotional increases, with hiring expenses for new Employees. Supervisors and managers will have to manage these funds more intensively. There is nothing that says the Policy must remain this way, since the Policy is in the draft stage. We are at a point to start discussion, Drake said.
George replied that his concern is with equity and fairness. If particular technicians in different departments are doing similar work and are classified the same, it would seem unjust if one is paid 25% more than the other because one department is richer than the other.
Tommy Brickhouse asked if managers could use lapsed salaries in assigning these funds. Drake answered that one must use continuing monies, and lapsed salaries are not continuing. Laurie Charest added that the only way lapsed salary money could be used would be to fund a temporary adjustment or temporary change in duties. For any permanent adjustment there must be continuing monies because the adjustment creates a continuing obligation.
Tommy asked about the formula used to determine one’s position within the salary range in cases of service inequity. Drake said that he and the Personnel Policies Committee had explored this point previously. The Salary Administration policy attaches a value of 5% for each year of relevant service the Employee has above the minimum required. For example, an Employee, hired with minimum experience, should place at the 75% level of their salary range after fifteen years of relevant experience in the same job. This 15-year Employee should at least be above the midpoint of their salary range (50%).
In reality, Employee salaries have not moved in this way. The hypothetical Employee may be at a point 20% above the minimum in their salary range. That Employee thus receives a salary approximately 55% below what they would receive if they received raises placing them at a 5% higher level for each year of service, according to the Salary Administration policy.
Thus, every Employee with more than 2 years relevant service who has not begun to move up within their salary range would qualify for this policy. While an Employee’s years of service are increasing, movement within the salary range has for the most part remained constant. This gap continues to widen and would be addressed where possible by the In-Range Adjustment Policy.
Laurie Charest provided another way to formulate the problem: when an Employee comes to work at the University, a maximum possible salary is calculated for them based on how much above the minimum education and experience they have. Taking your own maximum possible salary in your current job is the same as “expected salary.” The Office of State Personnel is considering this “expected salary” in determining salary ranges.
Mona Couts asked what happens to departmental requests for adjustments that are not in compliance with University and State policy, pointing out this was not spelled out in the draft. She asked if the draft could state that “if the request is found not to be in compliance, the program administrator will work with the department to bring it into compliance.” Drake anticipated this would be the case informally, but thought it worthwhile to state it specifically within the Policy.
Eddie Capel, noting the localized nature of funding for these adjustments, said it appears that the University has attempted to centralize its Development arm and he wondered if the proposed Policy might create a stampede from the departmental level to find benefactors. If managers cannot use lapsed salaries as a continuing funding source, they might seek benefactors to contribute to their particular discipline. The department could “charge out” and solicit these benefactors to contribute on a continuing basis in the same manner as Development.
As a broader issue, Eddie was concerned that different departmental initiatives may ask the same benefactor repeatedly for continuing funds for Salary In-Range Increases. Benefactors are sympathetic to Employees but are more likely to support global concerns instead of specific departments. He foresaw department heads beating the bushes to raise funds for their Employees, if allowed.
Drake said that he had not thought of this. Laurie Charest asked if Eddie’s concern was about University fundraising as a whole, or was he concerned about the impropriety of departmental fundraising. Eddie shared both concerns. Laurie said that individualized fundraising occurs all the time, not with In-Range Adjustments, but for chairs and professorships. She did not think that the principle was different in this case.
Eddie noted that the effort was cooperative to fund a particular Chair of History, for example. The number of creative and energetic managers on campus seeking these funds could create some conflict. Laurie did not think that the rules about what went through Development would change through this Policy.
The Chair offered that an In-Range Adjustment Fund could be a box checked during the University Campaign. George Sharp amplified the point, noting that a glamorous department like Neurosurgery or Microbiology would be more likely to win this type of competition than Grounds or Housekeeping or Laboratory Animal Medicine which are necessary support services.
Eddie proposed that the Policy include some example of the types of funding that departments could use to support these adjustments, prohibiting, he joked, “departmental car washes and bake sales.” Drake said the point was duly noted.
Peter Schledorn inferred that the University should create, as a very high priority, a campus-wide Salary Adjustment Fund that all departments could utilize in order to support these adjustments. Currently, receipts-funded departments have more flexibility, as do overhead-funded departments while State-funded departments have very little flexibility. Generally he thought the idea of University-funded salary adjustments is a good idea, but he thought that they would not be equitable or effective if the University did not pool available funds.
Peter thought that if Employees do not push this idea to the Administrative Council and the Chancellor, as well as push the Legislature to fund the Comprehensive Pay Plan, horrendous morale problems will result, magnifying problems that already exist with reclassification and salary increases.
Peter suggested that the University publicize standards involved in calculating where Employees are and should be within their salary range. This should not be done in a way to depress the entire campus, but so that Employees can know the basis on which departments have made their recommendations. Employees and department heads may disagree about decisions so general knowledge of the criteria could ease sore feelings.
Peter thought any corrective action could take effect over a number of years, but little of substance will take place without a general, campus-wide Fund; the policy does not address this on a technical level, so it could become a very serious issue.
Cary White asked where one’s salary should be as determined by the Salary Adjustment policy. Drake Maynard replied that the percentages cited were strictly an example. The In-Range Adjustment would apply when an Employee’s salary is more than 10% below what it should be within their range, according to the Salary Adjustment formula of a 5% increase within the range per year of relevant experience. In reality, Laurie concluded, most Employees will end up eligible for this Adjustment given disparities between years served and the generally small movement within salary ranges.
Drake emphasized that the Policy is a document in progress. He thanked members of the Forum’s Personnel Policies Committee, stating that it was a useful meeting for him and the policy. Peter Schledorn suggested that Forum members and Employees may copy their comments to Drake to the Forum list (forum@unc.edu), to further discussion. The Chair said that she would to insure that Laurie Charest and Drake Maynard had access to this list.
The Chair thanked Drake and the Forum for their efforts in evaluating the policy.
Vice-Chair Kay Spivey reported that the Forum would hold its Community Meeting Thursday, May 30, from 10-11:30 a.m. in 121 Hanes Art Center. Janet Tysinger, Director of Training for the Office of Information Technology, will be our guide for a “Brief Cyberspace Encounter.” Michael Williamson, Director of the Office of Quality Improvement for the Governor, will provide a presentation on “How Changes in State Government Management Affect You.” Ann Dodd, UNC-Chapel Hill’s Director for Quality Improvement, will be on hand to assist Michael with any questions he may be unable to answer.
Kay challenged each Delegate to bring five people from their department. Michael Williamson promised an entertaining, informative, and interactive discussion. The Chair thanked Kay and the Employee Presentations Committee for their fine work and urged members to bring their co-workers by the hand to Hanes Art Center.
Approval of the Minutes
The Chair called for a motion to approve the minutes of the April 3 meeting. George Sharp made this motion, with Laresia Farrington seconding. There was no discussion, additions or corrections, and the minutes were approved unanimously.
In the interest of time, the Chair passed on her report until the end of the meeting. She thought it more important at that time to resolve unfinished and new business. Members agreed with this change in the order of business.
The Chair noted that consideration of the Personnel Policies Committee’s suggestion to amend the Administrative Code regarding severe weather had been delayed until the current meeting. She asked Committee Chair Peter Schledorn to open discussion on the matter.
Peter passed out a revised copy of the Committee’s proposal which had been distributed previously on the Forum’s advocates list. The Committee incorporated the Forum’s suggested changes and clarifications into its amended policy.
The amended policy clarifies that the agency head would make the initial judgment as to whether a particular State agency would close due to severe weather. Also, the proposal incorporates Laurie Charest’s point that Employees required to work in severe weather situations should be awarded compensatory time equal to the non-overtime hours worked. Any overtime worked in such situations will be paid in accordance with the State’s policy on Hours of Work and Overtime Compensation, with every effort made to compensate overtime by payment rather than compensatory time.
The Chair asked for a motion to accept the Personnel Policies Committee proposal as revised. Peter Schledorn made this motion, with Tom Hocking seconding. Jennifer Pendergast reported the comment of a constituent who felt that the Forum’s efforts in the area of severe weather were a waste of valuable time. Employees should not be expected to be paid for not working. The Chair thanked Jennifer for relating this comment. In the absence of further discussion, the motion carried unanimously. The Chair thanked Peter and the Personnel Policies Committee for their work.
New Business
The Chair reported that the Executive Committee had worked on two resolutions regarding the privatization issue and supporting the Chancellor’s efforts regarding the housekeeping situation. The Executive Committee wanted to submit these draft resolutions to the Daily Tar Heel before the paper ceased publishing for the academic year. Because the resolutions had not been formally considered by the full Forum, the Committee submitted them as draft resolutions.
Chancellor Hooker had written a letter supporting the four points outlined in the privatization resolution. The Chair thanked the N.C. State Staff Senate’s Executive Committee which had produced the initial draft of the resolution, also considered by their Faculty Senate.
The Chair called for a motion to forward the resolution supporting efforts to improve the housekeepers’ situation. Norm Loewenthal so moved, with Sue Morand seconding. There was no discussion and the motion was approved unanimously.
The Chair called for a motion to accept and forward the resolution regarding privatization. Tom Hocking made this motion, with Kay Spivey seconding. As an editorial change, Peter Schledorn proposed, within the first “Be it resolved” clause, that after the word “goals,” the words “including quality” be inserted. Tom accepted this friendly amendment.
Rachel Windham thought that the third paragraph should be divided for emphasis. She proposed that the word “but” be struck and the words afterward form a separate paragraph: “Whereas, the Administration, Faculty and Employees of the University are in the primary position to determine where these opportunities may exist; and”. Rachel felt that this point was particularly salient to the privatization discussion. Tom accepted this friendly amendment. There was no further discussion, and the motion was approved unanimously as amended.
Return to Summary
The Chair noted that the Executive Committee had recommended that items for consideration and action by the Forum should be included in the monthly agenda packet. This recommendation was offered as an operating procedure, not an amendment to the Guidelines, and was not meant to discourage the many Committee reports that had been submitted to the Forum that morning.
Instead, the recommendation would apply to items requiring action and study by Forum members. If these items are not received until the meeting starts, there is not adequate time for reflection and discussion with constituents. The Chair asked for a motion to adopt the Executive Committee’s recommendation that reports and items requiring consideration and action be included in the monthly agenda packet. Tommy Nixon made this motion, and Laresia Farrington seconded.
Mona Couts voiced her support for the proposal. Eddie Capel cautioned Forum members to make sure they read their packet, a sentiment shared by the Chair. In the absence of further discussion, the motion was approved without opposition. Helen Iverson asked about the deadline to submit materials, which is the Wednesday before each Forum meeting. Peter Schledorn asked that the Forum Office issue a reminder of this deadline to Committee Chairs. The Chair agreed to have the Forum Assistant send out these reminders.
The Executive Committee forwarded proposals that Student Body President Aaron Nelson and Provost Dick Richardson give separate special presentations to the Forum. Members approved these proposals by acclamation.
Chair Dianne Crabill of the Nominating Committee reported that the group’s first meeting would take place Monday, May 6, at noon on the third floor of South Building.
Chair Leon Hamlett of the Orientation Committee noted the group had met on April 24. He distributed meeting minutes that morning which were also available on the back table.
Chair Peter Schledorn of the Personnel Policies Committee reported the group had worked on revisions of the severe weather proposal as well as developed the In-Range Salary Proposal with Drake Maynard. The Committee will examine the Call-Back and Stand-By issues, and asked that Employees having comments on these or other proposals to please forward them to Committee members.
Chair Tom Hocking of the Compensation and Benefits Committee noted that group had distributed its minutes and would meet again Thursday, May 9, at 11 a.m. in the Morehead Planetarium classroom.
Chair Helen Iverson of the Public Affairs Committee reminded members of the breakfast Saturday, May 4, from 8-10 a.m. at White Cross. Legislators will be in attendance and Employees will have the opportunity to question them on the Comprehensive Pay Plan and other issues. Also, she encouraged Employees to write their legislators and made available letter-writing packets developed by that Committee. Employees desiring this packet should contact her directly. Finally, Helen reminded Employees that Legislative Day will take place June 18 at the General Assembly. There will be a van going that will hold 15 people on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Chair Nancy Klatt reported that the Recognition and Awards Committee was considering creation of a list of ways to recognize Employees. The Committee was still working on this idea and would meet again in May.
Co-Chair Jennifer Pendergast of the University Committee Assignments Committee reported that the group had met and distributed minutes from its previous meeting. She noted that Kim Skeen from Systems & Procedures had volunteered to serve on the Enrollment Management Committee. The Chair called for a motion to forward Kim’s name to that Committee. Jennifer Pendergast made this motion, with Tommy Goodwin seconding. There was no discussion, and the motion was approved.
Chair Sharon Cheek of the Career Development Committee noted that group’s minutes were included in the monthly packet. The Committee had reviewed the Career Development and Educational Opportunities listing. Eddie Capel reported good feedback on the listing and the Committee hoped to incorporate suggested changes soon. The Human Resources Training & Development Office has been very helpful to the Committee, and have agreed to fund copying costs to distribute the list to Human Resources Facilitators and the Forum. Sharon lauded the job Eddie and the rest of the Committee have done in creating the Opportunities list.
The Chair reported on behalf of Ned Brooks that the Forum had forwarded the Pan-University Allocation Task Force’s amended recommendations to Wayne Jones.
Marshall Wade from the Employee Appreciation Fair Day Task Force reported a sign-up sheet for volunteers would be circulated to members. Dress for May 17 Appreciation Fair will be the commemorative t-shirts on sale at Student Stores. Information about the Fair will be in the University Gazette. The Task Force has door prizes ready. Nametags for the Fair will be sent to all Delegates and Alternates from the Forum Office. The Chair hoped that all members would support the Forum Booth.
The Partner Benefits Liaison, Peter Schledorn, reported the group had begun to look into methods to implement Phase II of recommendations previously approved by the Forum and the Faculty Council.
Legislative Affairs Liaison Tom Hocking said that group will meet Wednesday, May 15 at 8:30 a.m. in West House. Liaison Laresia Farrington said that the group was very enthusiastic about a joint effort between the two groups, possibly contacting Public Affairs Chair Helen Iverson about making the journey to Raleigh for Legislative Day June 18. Laresia hoped that members will make plans to travel that day.
Long-Range Land Use Planning Liaison Margaret Balcom announced that consultants will return with a consolidated design in an open session May 23. Information will be in the University Gazette. Margaret hoped that more members would attend these informational sessions since attendance was usually sparse.
Laurie Charest stated quickly that the Chancellor’s Award nominations are due Friday, May 3. She said this was a real opportunity to recognize those who do a wonderful job for the University.
Chair’s Report (continued) and Items from the Floor
The Chair noted that with Tom Hocking’s resignation, a new Executive Committee representative from Division 7 must be named. Jennifer Pendergast was chosen to succeed Tom.
The Chair reported that the Executive Committee’s meeting with the N.C. State Staff Senate was a very good meeting and that the group was working on many of the same issues. The two groups hope to meet quarterly. She found it interesting how closely the N.C. State group worked with their Faculty Senate, and hoped that similar cooperation could continue with the Faculty Council and its Chair, Jane Brown.
One way to further this cooperation is the newly created University Council, composed of Chancellor Hooker, Chair of the Faculty Council Jane Brown, Chair of the Forum Ann Hamner, President of the Student Body Aaron Nelson, and President of the Graduate and Professional Students Association Katherine Kraft. The Chair was not sure how often the group would meet but its inaugural meeting would be May 20. The Chair would report on this at the June Forum meeting.
The Chair congratulated, among others, Forum Delaeates Chien-Hsin Wagner and Janet Tysinger for receiving the 1996 Information Technology Award. Members gave the two a round of applause.
Tom Hocking announced that he had barbecue tickets for Legislative Day on June 18 for $5.
Marshall Wade asked members who had not yet signed up for the Forum booth to contact him at 6-5291 to be added to the list.
As the new Division 7 representative to the Executive Committee, Jennifer Pendergast thanked Tom Hocking for his efforts as a Committee Chair and Delegate for the Forum. She and the Forum wished him well with a round of applause.
In the absence of further discussion, the Chair called for a motion to adjourn. Betty Watkins made this motion, with Janet Tysinger seconding. There was no discussion, and the meeting adjourned at 11:44 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Matt Banks, Recording Secretary