Faculty Senate
Vol. 38, No. 3
September 25 2003
I. Roll Call.
Present: Beck, Bigel, Brooks, Dixon, Gendreau, Gibson,
Gongaware, Heim, Hoar, Kraemer, Maher, Majak, B. Riley, D. Riley, Shanks,
Shillinger, Sullivan, Taylor, Vandenberg-Daves, Wilson, Wingate.
Excused: Kernozek, Poulton, Ragan.
II. Approval of Minutes.
The minutes of the 9-11-03 meeting were approved as
distributed.
III. Reports.
A. Chair Hoar announced that Dr. Robert Richardson,
1996 Nobel Laureate in physics, will speak at 5:00 p.m. today in Valhalla.
The three groups (Positioning Task Force, Program Array
Review, and the General Education Committee) continue to meet to come up with
recommendations. It is likely that a report will be forthcoming from the
Positioning Task Force perhaps as early as the next senate meeting. The General
Education Committee is putting together a draft of possible new course review
material.
B. Chancellor Hastad is in Madison today.
C. No formal report from the Provost/Vice-Chancellor.
D. Chief Financial Officer, Ron Lostetter reported
that the Division of State Facilities has selected a consultant to work with
exterior campus master plan, which will guide exterior development over the next
15 yrs or so.
E. No report from the Faculty Representative.
F. Student Association President, Luke Naegele
thanked the senate for the opportunity to review the academic initiatives and
differential tuition program, which will report on the following four areas:
academic advising, international education, diversity, and undergraduate
research. The goal was to hire people for project by next semester however they
are not going to make that date. They want to work with faculty on diversity
and academic advising. Last spring the faculty senate put together an ad hoc
committee to work with students on advising. Naegele anticipates that
recommendations will be formulated within a month.
IV. Pay Plan Alternatives for Fiscal Years 03-05.
Bob Carney, accompanied by Scott Rohde, presented a
detailed explanation of UW System’s proposed pay plan, responding to questions
and providing clarification where appropriate.
Ron Lostetter reviewed a series of slides depicting faculty
and academic staff pay plan alternatives with respect to premiums for health
insurance. Under the new tier system, the State proposes a payment of $25/month
for single coverage and $62.50/month for family coverage. Lostetter reviewed
the individual impacts of pay plan alternatives whereby, UW-System proposes
providing an additional pay raise for unclassified faculty and academic staff
for the purpose of funding the employee contribution for health care premiums.
Both Carney and Rohde, UW-La Crosse representatives to the
Compensation Advisory Committee, worked with Ron Lostetter, Marcia Naber and Bob
Hoar to present the alternative plan to the campus community at three
information sessions. The following excerpt from a letter to President Lyall
from Bob Carney, represents Scott’s and his best estimate of the sentiment of
the unclassified employees at UWL.
- There was general agreement that the pay plan would
be financially valuable to one degree or another to all of the unclassified
employees.
- There was some understanding of the fact that as long
as the resulting monthly premium contributions were not out of line with our
peer institutions, the UW System would be more competitive in hiring if the
salaries could be increased.
- Conversely, there was fairly universal agreement that
there were so many unknowns associated with tying our self-funded pay increase
to the health insurance tier system, that the risks of adopting this plan were
very high. These risks became known as the risk of unintended consequences.
In general, employees are now sharing in the state’s present and future cost
of healthcare. This is a scary proposition in itself given the projections
for continuing double digit increases in the cost of healthcare. The idea
then of further tying the self-funding of our pay plan to our share of these
growing costs seems extraordinarily risky. The likely return is not viewed as
commensurate with the risk we are being asked to take.
- The following
represents a brief list of the concerns most often mentioned:
- The whole arrangement
for calculating the tier assignments has not been presented to the public.
In addition, our HMO representatives themselves remain uncomfortable with
the present and future implementation of this plan. The tier arrangement,
which can only be most described as politically and financially fluid, seems
a very inappropriate foundation for calculating the present and future cost
of our pay increase. What happens to the pay plan funding costs if the
underlying contribution mandated by the state increases? Is there any
reason to assume it won’t increase as the cost of healthcare continues to
climb?
- If an employee’s HMO
were to be reassigned next year to Tier II and the employee were to be
willing to pay the state mandated additional monthly premium to stay with
their existing medical facility and staff, why should they have to pay $240
per month for that right instead of $182.50 ($125 state mandated plus $57.50
for the pay plan funding)?
- What publicly given
assurance do we have from the Governor and the legislative leadership that
our effort will be viewed as a generous sacrifice to ensure UW System
remains able to pay and retain our employees and to remain marginally
competitive in the national/international marketplace for faculty and
academic staff? Given the recent press we have been getting, isn't it more
likely this effort will be thought of an an "elitist" attempt by those
academics to get more for themselves? What are the real, long-term
state governmental consequences if this plan is put forward?
- Six million dollars
of the funding for this plan is based on the hope that the actual cost to UW
System for the employee premium contribution will be less than the $25 and
$62.50 suggested. If the savings are not realized, will the pay increase
be reduced? Would those presently supporting the pay plan support the plan
if it turned out that the risks were being taken for an even smaller return?
- Twenty four million
dollars of the funding for this plan is based on the hope that the state or
UW System will be able to transfer $24,000,000 into our base budgets
beginning in 2005. Is this realistic and at what cost elsewhere in our GPR
budgets.
- In the end, no one spoke in favor of the plan at any
of the informational sessions or during informal discussions in the halls. No
one communicated any support in any of the e-mails we received. In fact, a
number of those e-mails began with the same initial comment, “Given my salary
and few years remaining until retirement, the UW System plan would probably be
more beneficial for me; nonetheless, I believe it may turn out to be very
devastating to the long-term welfare of our institution and employees.
Therefore, I oppose the plan and recommend that we support the state plan.”
Based on the sampling described above, it is reasonable to conclude that the
unclassified employees of UWL oppose the self-funded pay plan proposal.
Considerable discussion ensued. Concerns and comments
include:
- We lose our competitive edge with respect to
recruitment.
- Risky to set the precedent of using faculty
contributions to fund pay plans.
- Use of one-time funds is troubling.
- Movement of health care providers from Tier 1 to Tier 2
is worrisome.
- Could be political fall-out with the public and public
relations with elected officials.
M/S/P while the UW-La Crosse Faculty Senate appreciates
UW-System’s attempt to provide an additional pay raise for unclassified faculty
and academic staff, the UW-La Crosse Faculty Senate, after due consideration,
rejects the Systems’ proposed pay plan. The senate finds the financial
uncertainties, political risks and potential for unfairness to be significant
dangers which should be avoided. (unanimous show of hands)
V. Old Business.
VI. New Business.
VII. Adjournment.
The meeting adjourned at 5:00 p.m.
Submitted by
Eric R. Kraemer, Secretary