EMPLOYEE COUNCIL MINUTES
June 17, 1999

TOPICS DISCUSSED
- INTRODUCTIONS
- CORRECTIONS TO MINUTES
- COUNCIL MINUTES
- EMPOLYEE OF THE MONTH
- ANNUAL APPRECIATION AWARDS
- JULY 25TH PAY CHECK
- YEAR 2000
- PRESIDENTIAL SEARCH
- COMP TIME CLARIFICATION
- SHARED LEAVE
- HEALTH CARE RUMORS
- SUMMER READING HELPS
- ADJOURNMENT/NEXT MEETING

INTRODUCTIONS
This was a transition meeting including old as well as newly elected representatives and alternates.  Introductions were done around the table, letting us know who we were and which area we were representing as well as whether we were outgoing, continuing, or newly elected members.  We welcomed new members Paula Moffatt (rep) and Mike Posada (alt) from Business & Administrative Support: Unit B; Debbie Nethery (alt) from Instructional Support: Unit B; Dorothy Tenney (rep) from Plant & Facilities; Ginger Linnell (rep) and Shirley Hood (alt) from Student Services and SUB: Unit A; and Carola Alden (rep) from Student Services and SUB: Unit B.  September 16th will be the first official meeting for the new council, and officers will be elected at that time.

CORRECTIONS TO MINUTES
The EC minutes from May were corrected at page 2, column 1, paragraph 3 - "Wednesday, January 6th" to read "Wednesday, January 5th".  Minutes were approved as corrected.

COUNCIL MINUTES
Distribution of Employee Council minutes was discussed.  This will be the next to the last FULL distribution of paper copies.  Each department secretary is asked to contact human resources.  If all classified staff in your department have email access, please email the names and individual e-mail addresses to Colleen Rose (crose).  If some do and some don't, please send just the number of classified staff working in the department.  Email minutes will only be utilized for those departments with 100% email access.  If the department has mixed access, everyone will receive a paper copy of the minutes. Employees with e-mail address will no longer receive a hard copy of the minutes; they will be directed to the Website that contains the minutes.  The minutes can be found on the CWU home page at the Business & Financial Affairs website, under "Committees and Councils".

EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH
Kim Thomas contacted Ron about the recent meeting of the new selection committee (Kim Thomas, Steve Johnson, Marilyn Thompson and Keith Jones).  It's their duty to evaluate all the nominations submitted and present the top three to the EC for voting.  They would like to revise the point grading system to keep it more in line with the format of the nomination form.  Kim will email their proposed changes to Ron, who will distribute them electronically to EC members for comment.  At the next meeting, six names will be submitted, and employees selected for both May and June.  A display of last year's monthly winners is now complete in Bouillon Hall.  Thank you to Kari Taylor and Tina Klampher who put in all the new pictures!  The outgoing portraits and snapshots will be returned to the employees involved, and a disc copy will be kept for our archives.
 
ANNUAL APPRECIATION AWARDS
The annual Appreciation Awards were held on May 27th in the Sue Lombard Room. Again, council members and volunteers made wonderful efforts, donating luscious flowers and wonderful cookies and making employees feel special and appreciated.  We discussed the ceremony looking for ways to improve, the most common comment was "the room was warm", and perhaps mikes would be helpful considering the noise of the fans.   Supervisors are encouraged to limit the length of their remarks, and understand that some editing is done as necessary.  We had a record number employees getting awards for 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 years of service to CWU.  Too many to mention, but Larry Watson, received 30 year award; Bonnie Petersen, Linda Baker, Fred Bryant, Peggy Jo Gomez, Pamela Wilson, and Charles Bonell received 25 year awards.  We are fortunate to have so many wonderful dedicated employees and you should have heard what their supervisors had to say about them.  Sometimes opportunities to "roast" are not passed by! Congratulations to all!  Thank you to all of our classified staff that make CWU such a fine place, to Kari Taylor who created the program brochure, and a special thanks to all those individuals and companies that donated door prizes this year.
 
JULY 25TH PAY CHECK
Ona brought us up to date on the changes in the PERS 2 deductions.  The reduction will be slightly less than that originally specified, because the effective date was changed from September to July.  Effective July 1st the employee contribution for retirement will go down 2.8% (from 4.65% to 1.85%).  This is due to the accumulation of funds in the retirement account during periods of strong economic growth and was approved during the last legislative session.  However, remember that these dollars have been removed from our checks as "pre tax dollars", when they are returned to your check, taxes will be subtracted.  Another option for this money is to consider adding/increasing deductions using "pre tax dollars", such as IRA, SRA, Deferred Comp, etc.  This change will first appear on the paycheck we receive July 25th.  The 3% cost of living raise will also appear on this check.

YEAR 2000
A workshop on Y2K will be held at Hal Holmes Center, June 23rd.  The university will also sponsor fall quarter workshops for students, faculty and staff focusing on helping you prepare yourself, your family and your home or apartment for possible Y2K related interruptions.  Dates will be announced in September.  The BOT has approved the schedule for the new year; we will delay the start of Winter Quarter, 2000.  This will be accomplished by a slight adjustment of holidays.  We will take January 1st on Monday (instead of Friday) and Tuesday we will take President's Day.  Classes will begin on Wednesday, January 5th.  These changes will affect most general staff, some "essential personnel" will continue to be available to deal with potential problems over the long weekend.
 
PRESIDENTIAL SEARCH
Classified staff employee Marilyn Thomson is on the Presidential Search Committee and questions may be directed to her at 2711, or 2713.  Phil Backlund from the Strategic Planning Committee has sent out the results of the campus wide survey concerning presidential traits and attributes for the leadership profile.  The BOT requested this information to assist in the creating the position description and in developing screening tools used for candidate evaluation.  Ask your EC member if you haven't seen the results of this profile.

COMP TIME CLARIFICATION
Ona clarified the statement in the last minutes on comp time.  Some divisions have different comp time practices to reflect their work year and financial policies (i.e., self-support and rebill accounts) pay off any comp time on the books on the last day of their comp time cycle.  In the past it was an OFM requirement that comp time be used in the biennium in which it was earned.  Supervisors may still schedule any comp time on the books during the last 60 days of the biennium.

SHARED LEAVE
Shared leave may be donated to other employees in need.  Guidelines were listed in the May EC minutes and the June 11th University Bulletin.  Ona clarified the leave donation process.  When you fill out the form you may choose to share leave only to a specific person; if that person is no longer "in need," the leave will be returned to you.  Or, you may share leave with a specific person, and specify that if that person is no longer in need, your leave goes to the next employee who is "in need".  With a workforce the size of ours, there is nearly always some employee who is in an emergency situation.

HEALTH CARE RUMORS
Some council members have heard rumors that Group Health Northwest is pulling out of Kittitas County.   Some reported that they even heard this on the news.  Group Health has discontinued some Eastern Washington counties, but Kittitas is NOT one of them.  As always, changes in terms of health care coverage will be announced in the fall during "open enrollment".

SUMMER READING HELP
The education department has classes, Reading 309 and 592-Practicum: Diagnosis and Remediation of Reading Difficulties this quarter.  Both include individualized tutoring.   Summer is often a time when a young student's reading skills "slip".  It just so happens that college students in these classes NEED young people to work with to sharpen their teaching skills.  What a combination!  It's fun, and if you would like your child in elementary or middle school to participate, please contacts Andrea Sledge at 1871. She can email you an application form, sledgea@cwu.edu
 

ADJOURNMENT
The meeting adjourned at 3:00 p.m.

NEXT MEETING
The next meeting is  scheduled for July 15, 1999, at 2:00-4:00 pm in Barge 201.  All continuing members will need to attend. Alternates are always welcome.
 
Members present:
Paula Moffatt, Business and Administrative Support: Unit B
Karol Barker, Dining Services
Kariann Taylor, Instructional Support: Unit A
Ron Aller, Instructional Support: Unit B-Employee Council Chair
Leona Johnson, Library Services-Employee Council Secretary
Ann Arango, Library Services
Ernie Wilson, Plant & Facilities
Dorothy Tenney, Plant & Facilities
Sheryl Grunden, Student Services and SUB: Unit A
Tina Klampher, Student Services and SUB: Unit A
Jeri Francisco-Porter, Plant & Facilities
Pat Devlin, Plant & Facilities
Mike Posada (alt.) from Business & Administrative Support: Unit B
Debbie Nethery (alt) from Instructional Support: Unit B
Dorothy Tenney (rep) from Plant & Facilities
Ginger Linnell (rep) from Student Services and SUB: Unit A
Shirley Hood (alt) from Student Services and SUB: Unit A
Carola Alden (rep) from Student Services and SUB: Unit B

Members absent:
Kim Thomas, Business and Administrative Support: Unit A
Elaine Long, Business and Administrative Support: Unit A
Nancy Jackson, Business and Administrative Support: Unit B
Sharon Damm, Instructional Support: Unit B
Kevin Gentner, Dining Services
Sharon Kies, Housing & Residential Services
Marilyn Thompson, Housing & Residential Services
Gene Wilson, Instructional Support: Unit A
Gloria Wilson, Student Services and SUB: Unit B
Karen Simmons, Instructional Support: Unit B
Vernon Bier, Plant & Facilities

Also present: 
Ona Youmans, Human Resources
 
Click here for a complete list of EC members