October 4, 2012 Minutes

Meeting Date: October 4, 2012

Presiding Officer: Dixie Williams

Members in Attendance: Dixie Williams, Andrea Weber, Scott Fiedler, Kelly Cara, Catherine Beck, Sandra Johnson, Teressa Arnette, Holly Robison, Charles Schoneboom, Erin Trotter, Steven Turner, Kirk Whittington, Matthew Stublefield, Yvette Medley, Brenda Stewart, Ryan Reed, Sandra Arthur, Andrew Garton, Allison Overmyer, Kathy Gibson.

Members Absent (Excused): Christina Bowles

Members Absent (Unexcused): Corbin Campbell.

Guests in Attendance: Gary Stafford, Deb Dishman, Susan Willingham.

Call to Order:

The meeting was called to order by Dixie Williams at 11:02 am

Approval of Agenda:

Additions: Employee Newsletter Committee. Agenda approved.

Approval of Minutes:

  1. Corrections to minutes: On public relations report, there are questions regarding whether or not the committee wants both a video and a personal rep. to attend the new employee orientation meetings. We will verify it with the committee and report back at the next meeting.
  2. Add Angela Strider as guest speaker

Minutes approved with changes

Chair’s Report:

  1. Executive Budget Committee Report. 4.7 million dollars to work with. Focus on Faculty/Staff raises. January for staff, faculty in February. This will go to the BOG this month. Other money will go to colleges based on requests that are approved.
  2. Faculty Senate Report: We need to appoint a Staff Senate representative today. At the last meeting, the General Education review was discussed at length. The package has been approved through faculty senate. There should eventually be a website up for everyone to review. More to come soon.
  3. Shared Leave Pool Report: Questions from Teressa Arnette from a staff member regarding shared leave pool. Those questions will be addressed to the individual by Human Resources. There were no requests for leave this month, so the committee did not meet. We were updated with the following numbers:
    1. Total Employees Contributing Hours: 176
    2. Total Eligible Employees: 154
    3. Total Hours Contributed: 4,544.00
    4. Total Value of Hours Contributed: $116,093.39
  4. Report from Meetings with Clif and Ken: We reported that we now have constituent lists for better communication to staff. They liked that idea. Talked about the Public Affairs Committee and what we are doing. Adopt a street. Talked about the EAP committee. Clif is VERY interested in this project and is looking forward to results of this committee. Talked about different programs at OTC, City Utilities. He is interested in us promoting involvement in the United Way campaign. He talked about mid-year salary increase. In meeting with Ken, we focused on committee structure and EAP program progress.

Executive Board has a time to meet with each of the presidential candidates. Send any questions you want us to ask to the Executive Board.

Chair Elect Report:

Two requests for work groups in August: Wireless work group, and making staff senate a priority in the work day. No volunteers so far, so we won’t be moving forward with either of them at this time. Brenda Stewart volunteered to join the wireless work group, so Kelly will get with her and discuss options.

Secretary/Treasurer Report:

Operating Budget: Staff Senate Shirts = 608.00, Table Tents for meetings = 22.99, Current Balance in account = 653.14

Special Events Budget: No expenses since last meeting. Current Balance = 1005.59

Scholarship Fund: Carry-over from last year = 2,262.00. Deposits this month = 120.00

Director of Staff Relations Report:

Committee Structure: Regarding ad hoc committees: Budget and Priorities committee will be formed if needed. We don’t have good notes from previous years regarding the activities of this group, and don't feel we have a current need to form this committee so for now it will remain inactive.

Standing Committee Reports:

Bylaws Committee – Kelly Cara: Have not met yet. There are no requests yet. Still waiting for final approval from President’s admin council.

Denim Day Committee – Andrea Weber: Denim days going well. Have a table $746.00 collected yesterday. Lower than last year, but still good. So far we have raised a total of 1158.00. Collection coordinators have to turn in money on Monday of next week. Don’t know yet how much that will be. We got several emails expressing concern about our association with Lee Denim Days because of the amount of administrative costs with this group compared to other groups.

Public Affairs Committee – Gary Stafford: Adopt-a-street went well. We hope even more will participate last time. We have some planning to do. November 2nd will be the next one. Requesting supplies: Gloves, trash bags, orange vests. Maybe Taylor health could donate some gloves? Motion to purchase items that we can’t get donated, second. Approved. Charles said we should work with him on getting things from his department on loan. Thought we could get this event on the University calendar in future. Make it a more university-wide event. Christina Bowles elected as Secretary of this Committee. Volunteer time?? University has committed 4000 hours of community service November 9-11 for 1,000,000 meals event. We need to identify a time period when we could volunteer. Any staff member can go – it’s on Clif’s Notes with a direct link to sign up. Staff Senate agreed to take the 3:30 – 5:30pm time slot, Friday, November 9th. Email Christina Bowles if you want to volunteer. Shuttles leaving from the North Mall – Bear Paw to get us to the expo center and back. Details will be sent out from the committee that we can send out to our constituents. Staff can attend at any time by signing up online, OR they can come during our time.

Public Relations Committee – Brenda Stewart: Were not able to meet last month – will meet soon.

Scholarship Committee – Andrew Garton: Set a goal of raising 1,000.00 this year for the scholarship. Missouri State Way campaign. Email was sent to all staff encouraging them to donate. Reminder will also be sent. We have gotten some gifts from that campaign. We have an updated website for this scholarship, including a recipient page for this year’s recipients. Added a page on how to apply. Updated Scholarship Agreement and ways to give page. Also looking at Thank-you packets to everyone who has given in the past encouraging them to give again. Working at concession stands for sporting events. Rudolph’s 5 and dime. Staff recognition luncheon. Luncheon like the Denim Days luncheon.

Staff Activities Committee – Chair Needed: Need a chair – have not met. Kelly may fill in to get it started until we can get a chair. You don’t need to be a senator to be on a committee.

Staff Excellence in Service Awards Committee – Matthew Stublefield: Met with President’s office last week to work on schedule – Barb Helvey. Nomination announcement should come out soon. Matthew will work with Scott to get that going.

EAP Work Group: Did not meet in the last month. Waiting for feedback from New Directions. Got two bids from them. Will review bids in the next two weeks. Still hoping to report this fall.

Membership Committee: This committee has been folded into the PR committee, so we may need to look into a bylaws change if needed.

Scholarship Committee – Andrew Garton: Met once so far. Scholarship was awarded to two students: Brittany Donnellan, daughter of Debbie Donnellan and Dakota Arthur, daughter of Sandra Arthur. They want to do some fundraisers this year. The committee is discussing a special meal for a holiday with Chartwell’s, which would include bucket donations. They would also like to introduce the scholarship award recipients at the Staff Awards luncheon. Recipients have been photographed and we will have a page for them on the website. There will be information on our website on how to apply for the scholarship. Total award was $500.00 per person. We need to raise at least $1,000.00 per year to maintain the scholarship.

Other University Committees: Ken McClure is currently reviewing our representation on different committees. More information to come.

  1. Sustainability Commission Representative: Part of SGA, $200,000.00 budget. They have not given us a meeting day/time, but will meet monthly. Matthew Stublefield volunteers to serve.
  2. Faculty Senate: Non-voting member, meets monthly on Thursday 3:30 – 5:00pm. Sandra Johnson and Ryan Reed volunteered.
  3. Master Planning Committee: Dixie as chair will serve on this committee
  4. Public Arts: We don’t have much information on this group. Need a representative – don’t know how often they meet. Teressa Arnette and Yvette Medley
  5. Employee Newsletter: We have had one in the past. SMSU Today – it’s now a link to “inside Missouri State” on the Missouri State homepage, click on faculty/staff. We can contribute to this from staff senate. There was briefly a newsletter for all staff on campus similar to the Provost Communique’. Staff senate does send out occasional emails, but not a newsletter. All emails to the entire campus need approval from Ken McClure.

New Business:

  1. Mileage Reimbursement Work Group – Scott. In the Executive Board meeting with Clif Davis, some general findings of the mileage group report were discussed. Scott indicated to Clif that the group was discouraged from continuing their research last year. However, the Mileage Reimbursement Work group was interested in continuing this work, if for no other reason to try and provide Departments with more information on their options and ways to save money on mileage. Clif also reported that he was not aware that we had an option to reimburse at a rate other than that state rate. He asked that we provide his Administrative Council with updated rates from each of the 2 year, 4-year private and 4-year public. He is particularly interested in the rates of the other 4-year public institutions as a comparison. Clif also reminded us that there is a set pool of money and the top priority this year is a mid-year salary increase. The Staff Senate Executive Board agreed, but thought the information was still worth discussing.

    The work group has been restarted and will report updated findings at a future meeting.
  2. Appoint Gary Stafford for Senator: As chair of Staff Senate, Dixie appointed Gary Stafford to the vacant seat on Job Family 4.

Old Business:

None this month.

Announcements:

  1. Andrew Garton – Scholarship Recipients: Scholarship Recipients of the award came to our meeting. Two students Brittany was here – general business major. Very involved on campus – on SGA and ethical leadership chair, goal to get JD and practice as an attorney. Dakota Arthur. Charles has bios he could send me – it’s on the website.

Adjournment:

Meeting was adjourned. Exact time was not recorded.

Next Meeting:

The next meeting will be held: November 1, 2012 at 11:00am in PSU313. The entire Staff Senate meeting schedule can be found on the Staff Senate Calendar.