Meet and Confer Notes
Faculty Association: Annette Schoenberger, Theresia Fisher, Judy Kilborn,
Frankie Condon, Steve Hornstein, Tracy Ore, P. N. Subbanarasimha, JoAnn Gasparino, Fred Hill, Donna West, Notetaker
Administration: Roy Saigo, Michael Spitzer, Diana Burlison, Nathan Church, Lin Holder, Rex Veeder, Ron Farrell, David Degroote
Meet and Confer Notes of September 23, 2004
Admin: We must postpone accepting these notes since we have not finished reviewing them.
Admin: Before we get started, I would like to introduce Ron Farrell, our new dean for the College of Social Sciences as well as David Degroote from the College of Science and Engineering.
1. Proposed Policy for On-Line Courses (Admin) (11/20)
We said we would establish a taskforce to look at this issue; therefore, we have appointed John Burgeson, Kristi Tornquist, and Sharon Cogdill as administration representatives. Do you have folks?
FA: No.
FA: One of our newest faculty members, Steve Malikowski in the Miller Center wrote his dissertation on this subject – he might be interested.
FA: I’ll put a call out. I didn’t have these notes, so I wasn’t sure what the makeup would be.
2. Partnership Agreements (FA) (2/26)
Admin: We’re putting together materials on this and, hopefully, I’ll have them before the next Meet and Confer.
3. Technology Committees (Admin) (4/1)
FA: I sent a call out, we received volunteers, and they were approved in Faculty Senate. I sent the names to Kristi Tornquist and Doug Polley. I don’t think we filled all of the positions, but we’ll try to get more volunteers in the spring.
Admin: Ok.
4. Internal Audit (FA) (4/22)
FA: We’re working on our questions, and we can discuss them when we come to New Business.
5. Search Committees for Administrative Positions (Admin) (9/9)
FA: Do we want to go to New Business, #2?
Admin: No.
Admin: I asked you for the names of faculty to serve on this committee.
FA: We reviewed this (breakdown of representatives) at our last Meet and Confer, and we brought this to Faculty Senate, and Senate approved. We put out a call, and the deadline for volunteering is October 19; so it will be early November before we’ll have names for the committees.
Admin: We probably won’t have anything until Thanksgiving, and this means we will not be able to advertise until December -- quite a bit later than we had anticipated. Is there any way we could modify the standard practice so we could get candidates earlier?
FA: Would the ad be written based on the job description?
Admin: For the two college Deans and the Sponsored Programs positions, but it would be helpful to the university if we could begin the process of advertising earlier if no one objected.
(A brief caucus was held.)
FA: Thank you for giving us these three job descriptions, and we look forward to getting the other four. We agree to do the ads now or as soon as you can; but the Executive Committee wants to look at them before you send them out and be allowed to make comments based on the job descriptions. We are very grateful you’re asking us about this, and we’re sure you’ll continue to do so in the future! (laughter)
Admin: Thank you.
FA: I have a clarification question. When it is professional advertising, who writes the ads?
Admin: We’ll probably have a committee! (laughter)
FA: I thought it would be Lisa (Foss).
Admin: No -- Rex will draft the ad, and I’ll look it over.
FA: And then you’ll get it to us?
Admin: We’ll get it to you as soon as it’s done.
FA: As many times as I’ve been on search committees, you could pay me to write the ad!
Admin: Do we have the budget? (laughter)
6. Diversity Education Task Force Proposal (FA) (9/9)
FA: At the last Meet and Confer, you said you would have a response…..
Admin: We said we would refer this to our senate, and we haven’t met, unfortunately; but we will get back to you as soon as possible.
Admin: Is this administration’s or faculty’s topic?
Admin: This is a proposal from faculty to establish a diversity education taskforce.
7. Article 22/25 process and explanations. (Both) (9/9)
FA: The last time we met, we were talking about LOUs and MOAs and which one we wanted to do. Therefore, I had a conversation with Pat Arseneault about the definition of each, and I understand an LOU is the correct term. What we need is to work from both sides and to encourage clarification of Section D of Article 22 as related to Article 20. Pat said LOUs do, indeed, change the contract; and you can write them in a way that indicates the contract will be changed at the next round or in such a way they disappear, or you can write the LOU even if there is no change in the contract – it all depends on the language.
Admin: I don’t think anyone on campus has the capacity to enter into an LOU.
FA: I don’t either. If we come to an understanding and clarify what it should be, then we can go to the higher ups to say this is what we want, then to MnSCU, then both sides would agree. Pat Arseneault confirmed you’re absolutely correct neither of us can do for MnSCU, but we can start the process.
FA: In the RPT workshop at the beginning of the semester, MnSCU said you can’t write a perfect procedure, and they didn’t seem to be troubled by issues the administration and the FA on this campus and a lot of other campuses are struggling with. It would be good if we could get the support for this because I think there is common ground on how we can work to change Article 22 to meet our common needs.
Admin: We’ll see what we can do.
FA: Can we have the next meeting of the ad hoc Meet and Confer subcommittee on Article 22 in order to begin discussions on this?
Admin: I don’t think anything can happen -- it would have to take place between MnSCU labor relations and the IFO.
FA: We agreed we’d begin discussions on a plan to modify Article 22, so if MnSCU wants to come down to be a part of this…..
Admin: I think I need to talk to the folks at MnSCU to see how they want to proceed; since absent their cooperation, we can’t do much.
FA: What about our agreement?
Admin: We can maintain what we agreed on.
FA: It is our recommendation for our local FA and administration to begin discussion on a plan resulting in a Letter of Understanding (LOU) to change Article 22 of the MnSCU IFO Master Agreement.
Admin: I’m not sure of this; but I was informed we entered into negotiations not permissible in the contract. I’m trying to work through this.
FA: A couple of years ago when there were certain differences in perspective between SCSU and MnSCU, we took the extra approach of welcoming MnSCU’s Chris Dale and John Shabatura, and we sat down and talked about the issues – maybe it’s time to do so again.
Admin: We did that not too long ago, and it didn’t work well.
FA: We talked and strategized -- President Saigo invited them; and it did change our relationship.
FA: President Saigo, do you remember?
Admin: I try to block those memories! Let’s have Michael make a call, and let’s have MnSCU come on down.
FA: We are both in agreement and are on the same ground.
Admin: We agreed on local procedures, and my conversation with folks from MnSCU’s labor relations with regard to procedures was we were in agreement; but we weren’t negotiating on behalf of MnSCU -- in some cases, it could be perceived this is what we did.
Admin: The second half of the proposal, in the meantime, did lay out something we could work on while we’re waiting; so we’re not completely without a local understanding. I heard it is working out pretty well.
Admin: We’ll follow up.
FA: Thank you.
8. NCA Committees (Admin) (9/9)
FA: We put out a call and will start approving assignments to these in Senate on October 26. Maybe we’ll have elections. We’ll just keep going until we get these filled.
Admin: Thank you.
FA: Who should I send names to?
Admin: Me. I read all my e-mail!
FA: I may pick someone else!
Admin: Pick someone else!
FA: It is my belief it is best if a response goes to two people…..
Admin: You may send a copy to Lin.
Admin: Do we have a calendar of events on this?
FA: It’s on the bottom.
Admin: My past experience is we’re always going to be behind.
Admin: We’re already behind!
Admin: Lin would be the appropriate person.
9. Process used to decide which department a faculty member is rostered in (FA) (9/9)
Admin: We’re working on a draft, and we’ll get it to you.
10. Faculty Forum Day and Opening Convocation, Homecoming and Commencement. (FA) (9/9)
Admin: I was hoping we’ll have all kinds of faculty volunteers to help with this!
FA: We were thinking of a faculty king and queen! (laughter)
FA: I guess it’s my understanding the Deans have been asked not to schedule anything; and at the last Meet and Confer, you were still deciding about convocation and commencement. Have you decided?
Admin: I thought the question we were deciding was faculty’s participation in the planning.
FA: Correct.
Admin: No. We haven’t decided. We haven’t had a senate meeting in a month because of various travel commitments.
FA: Particularly around convocation activities – it would be really helpful in planning workshops for the faculty during convocation week.
Admin: That part I’m willing to agree to -- that would be terrific.
Admin: Can we cross this off (of the agenda)?
Admin: We still want to talk about the commencement piece.
FA: A good aspect to discuss regarding commencement would be who would co-chair this?
Admin: I think each group would have to come up with names.
FA: Can we come up with those for the next Meet and Confer?
Admin: Ok.
Admin: I think we should do convocation and Faculty Forum Day as well; but the other I’d like to defer.
FA: The concern about Faculty Forum Day is not so much we need a committee to plan this, the issue is it is a day to schedule meetings, and then the faculty don’t come to the events we’ve planned.
FA: Are there particular concerns regarding commencement?
Admin: Well, I’m not sure how that process is set now, so I want to check into that to see if this kind of change would step on someone’s toes.
October 26th Conversations on 2010 (Admin)(9/14)
FA: We’re just gathering all of the people involved. I received these books.
Admin: I’ll send the books as well as the agenda tomorrow to the people I have listed.
Admin: Can I tell them if there is any more news they’ll hear from you?
FA: Sure.
FA: We’re working on getting people, and I’ll take this off (of the agenda) then.
11. Restoration of Funds to Student Services (Admin) (9/23)
FA: I’m continuing to pursue this because I and other faculty have long been concerned about student services, particularly the Women’s Center and Multicultural Student Services. We’re still developing a response to your remarks at the last Meet and Confer and continue to be concerned about the restoration of funds.
Admin: Shall we leave this topic on the agenda?
FA: Yes.
12. CODAS proposal (Admin) (9/23)
FA: At the last Meet and Confer, you said you were interested in doing this, and you said we’d need to look at funding issues. Have you decided? Can you fund all of them?
Admin: They twisted my arm, and I looked at them and they seem reasonable, so we’ll support all of them. We’ll need to sell aluminum cans! (laughter)
Admin: We have come a long way. I attended a committee meeting this morning and visited with Larry Meyer who started a racial harmony group – it’s evolving, and some of your CARE members are on the steering committee. They’ve done a wonderful job and are now looking for a multicultural director. All of these things have really come a long way. The committee has changed over the four years, and I’m cycling off; and I said to them we’ve come such a long way regionally, and expanding influence is taking place slowly. Most of the new immigrants to this state are more foreign speakers than native speakers, so we’ll continue to have entrance-transition-type differences. We need to come back and do the basics -- always. This university has come a long way with the Mediation Program, training sensitivity, CODAS, and CARE taking tremendous energy. Another idea to think about when new faculty come to the university is taking them via bus to different parts of the state, introducing them to the Midwest. A lot of good things are happening and this is a part.
1. We request a list of all joint faculty/non-faculty appointments with percentages and supervisory duties (FA) (10/7)
FA: We’re requesting information here, in this particular case at least, of all joint faculty and non-faculty appointments with percentages and supervisor duties. We’re concerned these folks may be doing some supervising of IFO faculty. This can cause problems, especially when they’re supervising in their own college or department.
Admin: I’ll go to HR to get this -- there are a lot of people teaching as adjuncts. Do you want anyone who is teaching but also has another position -- any split between teaching?
Admin: Therefore, if a Dean of Social Sciences teaches one Sociology course a year, you would like this information?
FA: No.
Admin: I only want to frame the request.
FA: If there are situations where IFO union members with a half-time association are supervising IFO faculty, there could be problems down the road.
Admin: So you’re looking for IFO members or fair share members who have the addition of some kind of supervisory role involving IFO members?
FA: If they’re only 49 percent faculty, they can’t be part of our union; but there can still be problems with those people supervising -- anyone with 70 percent or greater Administration we are not interested in. We’d like to know what the others’ duties are.
Admin: Do they get their union dues back?
FA: As Treasurer, I say no! (laughter)
Admin: We will make this list and duties available.
2. Extra Money in the budget. Senate motion: That faculty senate ask the President for a detailed accounting of the unspent money, the exact amount of money and why it was not spent before we can begin discussion on how it will be spent.(FA) (10/7)
FA: We are pleased we have a surplus. Having said this, though, we were a little surprised; so we wanted to ask was this anticipated or not anticipated -- if it wasn’t anticipated, then why not? We’d like a breakdown of the total surplus by unit to give us a better idea. We’re interested in how the money is spent, and the details can help us. We would assume the university has a prioritized list of where the money will go. Do we have a list of prioritized items, and would it automatically go to those items and to restoring cut programs? Restoring faculty lines would be top priority; so these are various points we’d like clarified.
Admin: The first thing I would point out is what we’re talking about, primarily, is a one-time savings, or surplus, in various accounts. This means using the money to fund positions is something we’re unable to do, because positions are not one-time only -- they’re ongoing. To an extent there might be money on a permanent basis, then we would look at certain positions. Diana would you like to comment?
Admin: As far as money, you have to understand MnSCU will publish a fund balance. They (fund balances) are gray and don’t talk about real cash. When they refer to a fund balance, it’s all the cash we have regardless of whether we have any commitments against it; we allow people to carry over into fiscal year ‘05 from ‘04, and we have outstanding commitments we haven’t covered yet – certainly the faculty contract. The contract hasn’t been approved by the appropriate people as yet and can’t be implemented until everybody has put their stamp on it.
FA: They’re implementing it on November 11.
Admin: Providing the Legislative Review Committee (LRC) does not change it.…
FA: They’ve already met.
Admin: You’re right, they have until October 30; but if they choose to meet and if there are any issues, they might not approve it. I doubt this would happen, but it’s a possibility. So given this, you’ll hear a really big number of 16 million, five hundred thousand dollars; and I’ll tell you, against, we’ll spend our outstanding commitments. Travel funds carry forward from one year to another – the IFO and MSUAASF allows for 1 million dollars. We carried forward about 5.3 million in commitments. Our reserve should be set at 5.7 million dollars. We’re at the bottom of the 5 to 7 percent range of our reserve, bringing us down to 5 million dollars. I am working vigorously to get a detailed account of the unspent money by department and academic unit so all of you may see this. We did make an error, I’ll tell you, on utilities by being so focused on the spiraling costs of oil and applied this to electricity, waste water, and sewer; and we overestimated by $750,000. I take full responsibility for that -- I should have checked and rechecked those numbers, and I’ll watch this like a hawk in the future. By October 15, we’ll have all of this information and will post it to the website, www.stcloudstate.edu/budget, so you may look at it. We’ll put a message out to the campus community about where it is, what’s happened, and what we have. I think Provost Spitzer and the other VPs have had a discussion regarding what we want to do with those funds, and I believe it will engage all of the campus community. We’ve done this once before -- reallocated 3 million dollars in 2001. The difference was we didn’t have the money to allocate, and this drove us in debt; however, now we do.
FA: When you do this – will you do nonacademic (costs) as well?
Admin: Yes.
Admin: I have accounting for academic and non-academic.
FA: In the College of Business, they have an Advising Center -- would it be included there as well?
Admin: Yes. All of the things belonging to the college will be there.
FA: We should get this for 2004 and 2005 as well.
FA: Part of the reason we’re surprised is we haven’t had any information, and we don’t know what it is. I look at the internal audit recommendations, and it’s very clear there was a promise this information would be available, and it wasn’t. We shouldn’t be sitting here next October with you promising to give us fiscal year ‘05 information.
Admin: We will have quarterly reports on the budget.
FA: We should be looking at fiscal year ’05.
Admin: We don’t have data for fiscal year ’05 -- that’s not how the system works.
Admin: MnSCU is not on a quarterly reporting system -- it’s every month. If you’d like the reports – 150 pages of them, I can run the report for you every month.
FA: I’m serious about this.
Admin: I’m serious about it too – I would have very much liked to have met with the Budget Committee.
FA: You don’t need to meet with them.
FA: The date on this internal audit is 2002, and it’s now October 2004.
Admin: The first quarterly report is September 30 along with October, and we’ll do another in December – and again at the end of June.
FA: Thank you
Admin: If you would like to recommend a format (for the information), I would welcome this.
FA: If you had some of the past reports to reference, they were done in a very readable format –- by departments and by colleges for people who had a budget line, and they would indicate how much was allocated and encumbered.
Admin: I’ll gladly do that.
FA: If you give us reports with 300 pages, it’s more information than we need.
Admin: I agree – I don’t want to give you 300 pages.
FA: I heard a different number of unencumbered surplus.
Admin: I expect money that has no designation to it to be about $5 million. I haven’t finalized all of the numbers.
FA: If some of that was from failed searches, wouldn’t it be beyond one-time money?
Admin: It’s possible, yes. If they were failed for this period of time, those positions are still available to the college.
FA: So, it could be put back?
Admin: It was never taken away.
Admin: I think there needs to be a clarification -- those lines, if given to biology, are there and they don’t go away.
FA: Is this included in the 5 million?
Admin: If the position wasn’t filled—or a resignation occurred before the academic year and wasn’t replaced, it remains.
Admin: If they haven’t used (the funds) by the end of the year, or June 30, then it is a one-time event of those funds to end up in the balance, but it’s not perpetual -- the next year they start with those dollars again.
Admin: With regard to positions that haven’t been filled or filled with fixed-term faculty, in some cases, the deans have asked to carry forward a portion of the additional money for special needs or projects or expensive equipment purchases.
Admin: When you get a balance on September 30 for this year, it won’t really tell you if you necessarily have the money available. It will give supply money for departments; and if you assume they spent the money, maybe that’s right. Salary dollars are still out there in salaries where they’ll show. The way it works, in terms of credit, is we don’t have a uniform distribution of income.
FA: But, it changes every month. They can see if it changes. There are no explanation notes regarding why it changes -- this isn’t difficult to do.
Admin: But it may not tell you if you have additional funds or if this department is ahead or behind.
FA: They can see how much they’ll have left over -- you can follow a trend. As it is now, we haven’t got a clue.
Admin: I accept that.
FA: The promise made when I read the university’s response in May 2002 was we would be told this information; and we haven’t been, and that’s where we’re at and everyone is surprised and angry because we weren’t told these things.
FA: Last year, departments didn’t have paper, pens, and paperclips; and when you’re bringing them in from home and find out about a surplus, it’s hard to swallow. If there is some ongoing information, people will feel better about it.
Admin: Has all of the money been spent in all of the departments?
Admin: We’ll be able to look at this, and we will look at the extent to which deans have a lot of money allocated to colleges and departments that has not been totally spent. So, I think this is a good time to reassess and say where we are. I know, historically, one way a president can be removed quickly is to overestimate income and underestimate expenses. When I came, we had $0 in reserves, and the rule is 5 – 7 percent. When you have $0, it’s a difficult place. The good news is we’ve been able to save money, and have worked aggressively to obtain the debt students owed us. We didn’t meet the budget requirement from enrollment, but the difference was made up from accounts receivable. We guesstimated on energy, and we may be a little low this year – we didn’t’ expect $50 a barrel for oil. We also have to be cautious about lawsuits. As we look towards the future, we should consider the 5 major criteria as well as KPIs. Provost Spitzer asked the Academic Affairs Council’s recommendation for areas they see as the highest priority, and this information should be coming in soon; so we’ll have input from the university as a whole; and the Provost, staff, and I will make a decision where the money will go. We recognize we should have done some of these things – some got off of the horizon; and now we have an opportunity. It is good we have a surplus and we’re not in the negative, and we’ll be much more attentive to the needs and information sharing; and I promise to give you reports that are understandable.
You know, we’re in a good place right now; and I want to make sure you understand we’ll be here to work together in the best interest of our students and faculty, and we’re very sensitive to the needs of faculty. This is an oversight, and we’ll be much more attuned to what information you need on department-level decisions. It upsets us, too, because our decisions would have been different if we knew. As I said, Jeb Bush could not have guessed he would have had four hurricanes. If you want to blame anybody, blame me. Our budget is based upon a couple hundred more students than what we have, and we don’t want to say we guesstimated more. We’re going to start anew, and we’ll try to be as transparent and as open about sharing this information. My goal, as well as the Provost’s and yours, is for us to do the best we can with the money we have without going into the red.
FA: What we’re asking for is transparency, and the two external audit items are building a framework for the budget and information exchange. Many of us are not concerned if we’re off a little bit; but it’s important to know along the way. We’ve had this conversation, and we don’t hold you responsible; but in the previous administration, budget information was withheld from us. It’s important for us to see how we’re doing as a university.
Admin: If you would provide us with names to help with budget advisory, then we can come back to you regarding how we can share this information.
Admin: We are committed to sharing this information.
FA: With regard to the use of the term transparency, we don’t want to imply we don’t have trust. We should have a set of dials and indicators that are standard, because we had both agreed and committed two years ago to have a time-bound program. I don’t know if this can relate to having a faculty committee for this – we can only facilitate and help. I don’t know if we can give assurance we will have a committee.
Admin: I felt that a committee would then say we need this -- we’ll make this available.
FA: I think the president is to be commended as well as the administration for the savings made; but, again, the issue is transparency and open communication.
Admin: As soon as we realized there was a surplus, we started communicating that fact.
FA: I do want to chime in -- a conservative budget approach was better; and it was you, President Saigo, who made the budget transparent so we could see it by authorizing the first internal audit and agreeing to go with a second one. Certainly, if we would have had a $5 million deficit, we would be reeling.
Admin: I’d be gone!
FA: We’d throw you a party! (laughter)
FA: One thing that is clear is the information we’re looking at is not the information that will do for us. In the information we received last spring, there was no indication of a surplus; so we’re looking at the wrong information, and we’ll have to take this issue back to Senate to ask them what would give us a level of confidence.
FA: In the last week, I’ve had two conversations with faculty relevant to this issue – the first was a phone call from a faculty member in the College of Education looking for $50 to provide instructional CDs she developed for students in class and asked if she could have $50 from her budget and looked into CETL grants. She couldn’t find $50 to buy the CDs to burn to provide to her students. Also, this morning, I had a conversation with a faculty member in another college saying she estimated she has been spending $1,000 per year on instructional materials for her students. K-12 teachers get a tax credit, but we do not. One thing I want to say is please acknowledge that in the last four years, faculty have been working in a climate of fear and anxiety and are making all kinds of sacrifices to contribute to the financial welfare of the institution; and I think acknowledging your willingness to spend money would go a long way to mitigating the frustration about the surplus. Without this kind of information, we cannot intervene in colleges or departments when funds are being under spent.
FA: Another issue is overestimating this or that. Faculty are angry -- they didn’t know you overestimated. What we’re asking for and what the audit recommends was information you promised but didn’t give us, and this is why we’re disappointed.
Admin: The budget assumptions are the estimates we’re talking about.
Admin: One of the things I’d like to request from Senate is how to present this information for the end of April, May, and June, because this is when it starts to break loose -- when the information regarding balances available really starts to gel. Therefore, if you could help me decide how to report this information to you, it would be helpful to me. In regard to fiscal year ’04, we conducted town meetings and we put this information on the web. It’s still on the web, and we agreed we didn’t do a good job on fiscal ’05, mostly because we did the budget for ‘04 and ‘05 at the same time. There hasn’t been a lot of adjustment, and I’ll go through it now. I may have some information in my office that co-existed from years ago. If I find something, would you like me to share it with you?
FA: Yes.
Admin: I understand your concern, and we’ll provide you with everything you could possibly want in a format you’ll feel is readable.
The Radovich reports were done when we had an accounting system. The MnSCU system doesn’t do projections for salaries. The $600 insurance settlements for faculty, we do one by one. The 10/20/30-year steps are done one by one. There is no projection system that exists at MnSCU – it is done by hand. We don’t know the cost of things until after the first payment is made. We used to have a projection system. I have a diagram dated October 2000 when we had a MnSCU budget system discussion for salaries, and that’s the last time work has been done. It is extremely difficult to project salaries at this university – it’s not an excuse, it’s a fact. I understand your frustration. This is the same frustration I experience when I want to provide this for you. Do these reports meet your needs? MnSCU is not very willing to listen to us to get this fixed, but you’ll have this information.
FA: Do you get raw data?
Admin: Yes, then we go in and massage it, because of the way we have the budget set up. We set it all up to 0999, and it trickles down, so we don’t have to do budget transfers. I have to tell you the field we enter the original budgets in is a memo field, and it doesn’t exist in any reports. If you want to query data, you can’t do it -- you need to do it manually. I’m not making excuses -- you’ll get it on the time commitment I made. I have not taken a call all week to get the minimal data pulled together to provide you today with some numbers.
FA: I understand your frustration, Diana -- we have to work with systems. If the systems are not doing the job, is there some way we, as faculty, can say to MnSCU you need to put in place a system that will do the job that needs to be done. Is there some way we can help?
FA: Mankato has a pretty good budget layout, and we could start there – they are comparable to our number of faculty and students; and, perhaps, we can see what we can use from there and maybe get some tips from them.
Admin: We’ve had settlements including steps in the contract – not everybody gets these. You have to look at every person in time, but you have to have the settlement at hand to do it; and there is no way to do trial balances without a lot of time. Diana accepts responsibility disproportionably around the issue of utilities. Just like others, I rely on Diana’s experience and judgment, and we’ve benefited remarkably by this, and I think one issue we need to address is the system we have. Diana has valuable insight and good judgment, and her heart is in the right place; and she can’t provide what we want because she’s only one person. We’re struggling for information and we won’t change MnSCU, and we should look into a person who would work for Diana -- that would be a person who would crunch numbers, and Diana could be involved in the construction of the overall process. If you look at the overall system, that’s one of the things I would endorse, and I hope we’d have a shared endorsement to assist us to do this. I recall reports we used to get – they were useful and timely, and what we now get just isn’t useful, and you’re struggling.
Admin: To continue on the same subject, when I first came, I remember being attacked by a number of individuals because we had too many administrators, so we had NCHEMS come in. We were the worst in the MnSCU system for four years. Our philosophy has always been to put our resources in our faculty, and I think the data shows we’ve done that; and maybe its time we say we need some help here. We’ve beaten this horse to death, and I’ve given you my word, and we’ll get her help.
Admin: One of the key points is Roy tried to get the word out as soon as we knew we had a surplus. We had one hard figure -- $1.3 - 1.4 million dollars, and it’s natural that number came out – that’s the first number we could report. Diana is very close to having complete detailed data, and she’s worked herself into the ground and has a high degree of confidence $5 million is pretty accurate. The discrepancy between what you hear and what we know is the difference.
3. Strategic planning and the president’s request for KPI’s(FA) (10/7)
FA: President Saigo, you came into Strategic Planning and talked about the relationship between the budget and Strategic Planning…..
Admin: Planning is such an important part of this campus -- you worked hard to get the KPIs going, and this is an important step. As we’re looking toward the future, we’ll use your guidelines to help develop priorities; and Provost Spitzer will talk with the deans, so hopefully they’ll come to us and we’ll make a decision on where the moneys will go. In addition -- a balanced score card -- we’ll get one or two consultants to help with the issues and how we use the data to know how to guide us. Yes, I appreciate the Strategic Planning Committee and the KPI’s -- it is important we have guidelines; and we will make the decision on where the funds will go.
4. Professional Travel and Study (FA) (10/7)
FA: Regarding Article 19, Professional Improvement, on page 73 of the contract under Section B, Professional Study and Travel, last year when I took over the office of FA President, I received a number of complaints from faculty saying items they had been traditionally submitting for reimbursement through Professional Study and Travel were being rejected. I believe I talked with you about it at the time. I spoke with the Business Manager and was informed there was an audit, and it was recommended to separate the department funds from the Professional Study and Travel funds. At that time, the business staff began to interpret Article 19, Section B, subdivision 3 literally; and as a consequence, items that had been reimbursed in the past were no longer reimbursable. Therefore, I believe you and I discussed the intent of the audit was not to change the practice; and, perhaps, the contract needed to be adjusted, and we passed a Delegate Assembly resolution so it will be part of negotiations. However, in the meantime, I thought we had an understanding on this.
Admin: In looking at Article 19, I think I was under the mistaken assumption that Section A and Section B were somewhat the same when, in fact, they are not the same.
FA: Section A is Professional Development.
Admin: What I read I thought applied to the Section B statement as well; but under Subdivision 3, the contract reads very clearly funds provided by this section shall be limited to…….
FA: There is no dispute with that issue.
Admin: I thought when we talked about those two things they were the same, and I was mistaken.
Admin: It was not the responsibility for Business Services to understand the contract – this should be directed to the Provost or to the Dean.
Admin: I haven’t received any questions.
FA: Should we tell them if this is being denied they should bring the issue to you?
Admin: Now I’ll really need to read my e-mail! (laughter!)
FA: If a reimbursement is denied by the Business Office, I’d like if someone would tell the faculty whom they may call.
Admin: I have taken a large number of calls in the past – I think it’s because I allocate the funds. I do a spreadsheet of faculty travel dollars; and I basically pull out the contract and read it to them. I know we had an issue at one time regarding a faculty member using his travel funds for meals in France -- I can again direct the business office not to reject those expenses but to redirect them.
Admin: Do these requests go from the faculty member to the dean and then onto the Business Office?
Admin: They don’t come through my office
FA: I’m not sure if the deans are always involved – it is the department chair who is involved.
Admin: Why don’t you take to this issue to your advisory committee and come back with a process.
Admin: If this is an issue, the faculty member should contact the dean, especially if the dean has not seen the request. If there is a problem, it should go to the dean.
Admin: I agree with Diana’s point of advising the Business Office -- if something seems odd, then they should forward it to the dean or to the Provost rather than forcing everything through the deans. This should keep us out of trouble.
Admin: Right now if there are problems, the Business Office personnel should be advised if they have any questions to send them to the dean; and if faculty has questions, they should contact their dean. This sounds like the process.
FA: If the faculty member can’t get their issue resolved with their dean, then they can bring it to the Provost.
FA: A sticking point is my understanding about a faculty member who needed copyright permissions – and we would all agree if someone is publishing something, it’s a reasonable professional thing to do; and that’s why we were wondering if we are together on our previous agreement. I know we read that language word for word, and copyright agreements are not in there; and we would like to pay for that, but we don’t have a venue.
FA: If the departments don’t have money to pay for this, people are spending their own money.
Admin: I’ll look closely at how the supply dollars get distributed to departments.
5. Teacher Education Centers (FA) (10/7)
FA: The state office asked me to inquire if we have spent any more on this campus -- essentially what is happening, and what are these?
Admin: As far as I know, we haven’t spent any money. I don’t think we have these (centers); and I believe MnSCU is promoting teacher education centers to provide in-service training for preschool through grade 12 teachers throughout state, to have regional centers at the different state universities where faculty can provide in-service instruction for those teachers. That’s all I know. I’ll find out more information and report back.
FA: We’ve heard most of the universities have already hired someone as a director -- we have not; we have someone temporarily appointed without compensation. I continue to hear $50,000 per campus – $25,000 from MnSCU and $25,000 from the campus. Were’ not going to hire someone until January, anyway, and the questions are coming in -- how is in-service going to be provided, whose workload, and how will it impact people already doing consulting and do they do this on the part of MnSCU’s role or on the part of a consulting role?
Admin: We’ll look into this issue.
Admin: I would like to conclude by thanking everybody. When Judy Foster and Theresia Fisher and I started out, Bob Bayne said “boy, are you lucky”! We have come a long way in the last four years, and this group has changed as well as the President’s cabinet. I appreciate the atmosphere we have come together in today, and we’re here in the best interest of SCSU. You make mistakes and we do and I think the environment we come together in has been helpful. In the old days, it was not a fun place to be. It is important for me we’re able to discuss issues openly, because we’re not here to fight -- we’re here to make the university as good as we can make it. Most of us will stay -- I signed a number of sheets for phased retirements, and we’ll have new faculty and our relationship will filter to everyone. We’re trying to put in place procedures that will take away the importance of personalities; and everywhere I’ve been, it does not matter -- that process continues to move on. Most important are the human relationships we create, and it’s important we do this. We have beautiful strategic plans; and if you don’t make them workable, it’s a waste of time, and we’re trying to move towards that accountability and measurement we can share with the community because we’re being measured. We’ve been off of the front page of the St. Cloud Times in a negative context for about 10 months. We’ve made some mistakes and we’re going to move on. I’ve had to admit to mistakes, but it’s not done -- we want to do the best job we can. Thank you.