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 UHV Staff Council

Minutes

Staff Council Meeting

June 20, 2002

2:30 p.m. Alcorn Auditorium

Official Minutes

Chair:  Dixie Burge

Vice-Chair:  Suzanne Clodfelter

Secretary:  Minnie Urbano

Number of Members Attending:  12

Members in Attendance:  Dixie Burge, Suzanne Clodfelter, Minnie Urbano, Sharon Long, Faye Landry, Brunilda Ortiz, Lydia Huber, Cathy Nelson, Sandra Wood, Trudy Wortham, Liz Branch,

June Secrist

1. The meeting was called to order at 2:40 p.m.

2. The minutes of the February 14, 2002 were approved as written by a motion from Sharon Long, a second from Trudy Wortham and a unanimous vote.

3. Old Business: 

1. Dixie reported that in her meetings with Dr Haynes, customer service training & PeopleSoft training were discussed.  A synopsis of the comments that had been emailed to Dixie was presented to Dr. Haynes.  As a result of this, the Administrative Team (Dr. Haynes, Dr. Smith, Mr. Phillips and Mr. Beran) assigned Wayne Beran the duty of having a task force to meet and tentatively decided that a person was needed to print once-a-month reports for all departments and to handle all aspects of training.  Mr. Beran would bring this to the Administrative Team for discussion.  The decision to hire a person has NOT been approved.  This is an example of how voices from Staff Council can generate changes at UHV.

2. The issue of changing the Non-Exempt Committee’s constitution was discussed at length.  Their dilemma was that an officer of the Non-Exempt Committee was not allowed to vote because that person had not been at the university for six months or more.  Staff Council does not feel that this is an issue to be addressed by Staff Council.  The issue is referred back to Non-Exempt Committee with these suggestions:  Re–write your Non-Exempt Constitution using the Staff Council Constitution as your model, changing the name only where necessary and change the wording in “Article 7: Voting” to address the issue of voting by Officers who have not yet been at the university for six months.  Liz Branch moved to refer the issue to Non-Exempt Committee, a second was obtained and the vote was unanimous.

3. The issue of rating supervisors was discussed with Dr. Haynes again.  Her suggestion was that it be tabled forever unless someone could resolve how to do the rankings considering UHV’s administrative structure, etc. or unless someone brought up the subject at Staff Council Meetings again.  Neither suggestion has happened.  A motion was made by Lydia Huber & second by Sharon Long that this issue would not be discussed again, ever.  The vote was unanimous. 

                                       i.      A general discussion ensued about avenues to pursue if an employee feels that a review was unfair.  Going to Human Resources or going to the supervisor who gave the review are the only avenues available.

4. New Business:

1. The issue of whether a vote had ever been taken as to whether the current Vice Chair’s position was a two-year term was discussed at length.  Several attendees remember this issue being discussed and decided upon last year before the election of the current officers.  This is NOT noted in any minutes from last year.  Therefore, the issue will have to be voted upon BEFORE nominations are taken for Staff Council Officers this year.  Dixie will send out an email that explains the situation and will advise members to read the proposals and be aware of the vote that will take place in a couple of weeks.  Three decisions will be voted upon:  changing Article 4 of the Constitution, changing the Vice Chair’s term to be two years (one as Vice Chair and one as Chair), and whether or not to make this decision retroactive to August 1, 2001.  Annual elections for officers are held in July.  Timing will have to be monitored to be able to have a vote on the proposals, get nominations, hold the elections, and have a  Staff Council meeting in July.  It will be a busy month.  Tentatively, the next meeting will be around July 25.

2. Minnie will retype the Constitution and put it on a disk or CD for archiving.  Then, the Amendment will be entered if it is passed.

3. Three members volunteered for Nominating Committee:  Sharon Long, Lydia Huber and Nilda Ortiz.  Nominations should be taken July 10-17.  Elections will be held July 18-25.  This is so one week is left between the elections and the end of the month, just in case a run-off is necessary.

4. Lydia Huber brought up the issue of merit pool raises.  She has been at UHV four years but in her position less than six months.  This left her out of the merit pool for raises.  How can this have taken place when her supervisor guaranteed her that the change would not affect her monetarily?  Dixie will check the Cabinet meeting minutes to see if there was a decision made at the level that somehow affected employees that had been in their positions less than six months.

5. The meeting was adjourned.

These minutes were approved as written by the Staff Council on November 12, 2002 meeting.