President's Report

University Council

This has been an interesting year. Staff Council has achieved its goal of increased representation on University Council. As a result, we revised our bylaws to include the election of our representatives to University Council. We also addressed those representatives’ obligations to Staff Council. Let me thank all of those who participated in this process.

 The bylaws of University Council were updated again this year and we now have the ability to address the Council at each of its meetings if we so desire.

Come the fall, our Staff members will be joining the University Council. I look forward to seeing this evolve and improving our relationship with faculty, administration and students. We must never forget the reason we are here is to serve our students and help ensure a better future for our State.

Tuition Assistance Program

We have put a proposal through the Council to address some issues with the Tuition Assistance Program. We will be working this through Council next year. The registrar’s office would like to have some input on our proposal. I think that is a good idea, because this program is administered by the Registrar’s office.

Lunch & Learn

The financial education Lunch and Learn seminars held by the College of Family & Consumer Sciences Family FInancial Planning program and the Georgia Federal Credit Union were a great success and it is my understanding that they will be continued this fall. I will be sure to get the word out to all of you and appreciate your letting all of the people you work with know about this great program.

Shared Leave

I have asked about expanding the shared leave benefit this year to more closely match FMLA standards. This has been a great program—total donations of hours from February 2004 through May 24 2007 have been 46,434. I don’t believe we will see any change in this program in the foreseeable future.

SRG Ad-Hoc & Census

The SRG Ad-Hoc Committee formed by Bob Ratajczack in his last year has finished their work and we now have bylaws for small, medium and large SRGs to use as templates if they need them. We hope this will be a benefit to all and help to get more involvement on Staff Council.

The census has been done and we have a new college this year: the Eugene P. Odum School of Ecology. We will need to get reps from that school involved as soon as we can.

Statewide Staff Council Meeting

The Statewide Staff Council meeting will be held at Southern Polytechnic this year and Chancellor Davis will be the keynote speaker. I encourage all staff to participate and pledge Staff Council funds to help provide transportation in order to ease that burden on the departments who send reps to this event. I still do not have an agenda at this time, but hope to have one by the end of June. I will be sure it is posted to SC Website for all of you as soon as I receive it.

Clyde Anglin

Sadly, this year marked the passing of Clyde Anglin, a former Staff Council President in 1997-98. I did not know Mr. Anglin personally, but I have benefited from his work on Staff Council.

Other Issues

We have some important issues coming up next year., The Living Wage Proposal will be added to the University Council Agenda as an action item; as you know, it was introduced at the last meeting as an information item. There is talk of a gender equity study to be done on campus and I have informed the prospective chairs of the Benefits Committee that staff needs to be included. Staff is sitting on two committees this summer. Both are concerned with campus safety. Their reports will be finished September 1.

Background Checks

The Board of Regents has called for background checks of all new hires. UGA already does background checks on safety sensitive positions and checks the academic credentials of faculty. The problems with this “Unfunded Mandate” are numerous, the first being who bears the cost. The average cost of a comprehensive check is around $50.00. A second concern is who is watching the Watchers? Third, how does this affect the morale across all campuses? And finally, how does this affect academic freedom and how can inaccuracies be addressed?  A committee is addressing these questions, and Staff is being represented here also.

 

Salary Compression

Next year I intend to hit the ground running. Staff salary compression is the most important thing that I wish to address. I intend to give a clear and strong message to the administration, the Board of Regents and the Governor on this very important issue. We need to be heard, and we need action to be taken by ourselves and by all of those in position to help us.

Salary compression is defined most clearly as this: a condition of internal inequity caused by external market conditions and the economy.

There are many theories and remedies for salary compression; some are based on length of service alone. While plans based on this single factor do have the potential to minimize the value of a long-term supervisor’s experience in relation to a newly promoted supervisor in the same job classification, these plans do not negatively impact existing supervisor/subordinate salary relationships. Pay plans that reverse these relationships can be detrimental to pay equity; recognizing them and rejecting them is very important to creating and keeping some balance in our present pay classification structure.  This is but one approach to take in addressing this serious and ongoing problem in our present system.

I certainly do not have all the answers, but we must begin somewhere and we must begin now. We must take this task upon ourselves and we must be united in it. To all of you who are frustrated with the current situation, think of your frustration come January 1, 2008, when the minimum hiring rate goes to $20,000 a year. Administration knows this is a problem and I believe they are trying to come up with solutions. We need to be a part of that conversation.

Submitted Respectively,

Shannon Scott
UGASC President