Collegewide Staff Council Meeting

Absent: Deborah Donohue (OSC)

Dan Smith was introduced and welcomed to the meeting. Due to schedule conflicts, Amy Alonso resigned as vice president of the East Campus Staff Council and Dan was elected to replace her.

Janice Wentworth, former chair of the Osceola Campus Staff Council, was also welcomed to the meeting. She was attending the meeting on behalf of Deborah Donohue and the Osceola Staff Council.

The meeting began with an informal challenge to Dr. Shugart to match baby pictures to the attendees.

Latest revisions of the Collegewide Issues Lists were distributed. Dr. Shugart indicated he had reviewed the lists, and wanted to comment on several of the issues that appeared to be of the most concern to Career Service employees. Those issues and his comments are as follows:

1. Financial compensation for F/T Career Staff who complete a degree:

Dr. Shugart indicated that at some point he wants to connect compensation to learning for all employees. In the future, it=s very possible he may establish a learning increment in everyone=s salary if employees meet a learning plan.

One way of doing that is to establish a pre-determined number of hours of formal training or learning, that if completed, an employee would qualify for an increment in salary. Each employee=s learning plan would be up to him/her and/or his/her supervisor. However, the supervisor would have to sign off on it.

Courses taken through Leadership Valencia might be assigned points, such as Continuing Education units (CEU).

2. Consistency of pay grades, upgrades, involvement of Cody:

The College is now budgeting for Cody studies, and the College is being more systematic and methodical, thus allowing better time for Cody to do the studies. The expected cost this year is $160-170,000. The bulk of the studies has been for security officers and staff assistants.

3. Lack of staffing in areas:

In 2001-2002, the bulk of additional staffing was made in faculty. For 2002-2003, a substantial investment was made in support staffing. The College budgeted almost $1 million in positions this year B mostly in student services positions.

4. Performance Reviews

Dr. Shugart indicated he is not comfortable with a pay system that is not tied to performance. Somewhere along the way, he will probably recommend that the College=s Pay Plan be revised to recognize extraordinary performance.

Areas of the college that are entrepreneurial in nature, such as Valencia Institute, will have economic incentives built in. The College recently hired a new person whose compensation is largely based on the money he brings to college.

5. Healthcare

Dr. Shugart reminded council reps that last year the healthcare insurance went up 29%. To help offset the increase for employees who paid for dependents under the college=s healthcare plan with BC & BS, the College subsidized half of the increase for the calendar year 2002. In other words, the college paid 14-1/2% of the increase, the employee paid the other half. It was projected at the time of the increase that employees would have to pick up the other 14-1/2% in January 2003. The College just received the good news that the loss ratio was down in 2002. Therefore, not only is there no expected increase in health coverage, but since the college rates are coming down, some of that will be used to help offset the subsidized portion. Therefore, the increase for dependent coverage will have no, or very little increase.

Following Dr. Shugart=s discussion with the Collegewide Council representatives, Dr. Stone announced that the Executive Council has indicated the desire to add a Career Staff employee to the Executive Council. Debi Jakubcin was nominated and approved to serve on the Executive Council. The term of service is for two years.

Joanna Branham reported that the College Learning Day Planning Committee decided that faculty/staff groups would not have separate lunch sessions; therefore, there was no further need to plan the AUnder Construction@ rally. So that there would be some attention given to Career Service employees, the group discussed the possibility of setting up an information table. Lorraine will contact the appropriate folks to see if this is a possibility.

Another meeting was set for October 10, 2002 to discuss any final details for College Learning Day.