CLASSIFIED EMPLOYEE PERSONNEL ADVISORY COMMITTEE

MINUTES
November 14, 2002

Meeting with President Gamble. Questions raised

• Laying off classified employees due to state budget deficit
• New position for hiring minorities and women
• Vice Provost Position
• Any upper administration lay offs due to state budget deficit
• MAP bonuses are being rejected at higher administrative levels
• Parking problem - why isn't a parking garage a serious consideration or at least better bus service

Response from President Gamble

• As of now no anticipated layoffs of any kind
• There will be cuts to all agencies, MUS system included
• All budget reductions are a 50/50 …. Reduction/new funds
• No one can know what will happen in the upcoming legislative session
• Higher education is an easy target vs. aged, sick, etc.
• Higher education already took a $3.6M cut from the August special session
• MSU has its largest freshman class as well as its largest number of students
• The mix of students at MSU is different - 8% of the budget is made up of out-of-state student tuition, so we need to bring in more out-of-state students
• We need to concentrate on retention; we lose $6K/student when they leave
• We are rapidly moving from a state supported system to a state assisted system
• Only 46% of our budget is from the state now
• We must be more reliant on other funding sources
• Our tuition, both in-state and out-of-state are still low based on national trends
• Our goal is to have $15M in scholarships for Montana students
• We need to concentrate on and care where the university is, not where the state is
• We hope to get rid of the non-resident cap imposed on the campus
• "Doom and destruction" is not his style
• We need to protect the university and its employees as we're in for a tough time
• The credibility of the university is low in the view of the legislature and the public at large

The following comments relate to MAP Program

• Regarding the merit portion evening in budget cuts his administration will carve out dollars for incentives
• Supervisors need to be trained
• Personnel development
• Bonus requests turned down at higher level - bring those to his attention.

The following comments return to Dr. Gamble's more general responses

• Incentive Proposal … Rich has talked to Dr. Gamble about this. The idea is to submit ideas to a committee. The suggestions are evaluated as viable vs. non-viable. The non-viable suggestions are taken out of the mix, and the remainder go on to an established committee, then on to whoever the suggestion affects - that group would have to substantiate why is won't work. The BOR is requiring incentive proposals, and this one will be presented at the PEC.
• We need to promote that state funds are an investment in education

After Dr. Gamble left the meeting ….

Cindy reported ITC told her they could not create a classified list serve because there is no common field in the Banner system they can key into to pull a master classified list of email addresses. However, folks from Personnel attending the meeting felt that wasn't the case. Cindy will contact Connie and Dawn about this and report back to Rich.

Sara needs to be added to the CEPAC list serve - Cindy will contact ITC and have that done since she had the original list serve set up.

Rich will meet with supervisors on the continuing problems with wellness and email access for custodial employees.

OFS Advisory Committee Nominations - go back to your areas and solicit names of individuals who would be interested in serving on this new committee. Send the names to Rich (by noon on Nov 21) and he will forward them on to the President.

Space Management Committee … the hierarchy has been set that if the department head can't resolve the issue, it gets bumped up to the dean, and then would go to the provost if necessary.

Talk is still happening with regard to leveling the "stack" - however, this is still up for discussion. It would be around $12M to reinforce the stack.

Rich alerted members that FS employees are turning in those parking in service drives (a FS vehicle was towed which prompted the need to make people keep drives open for FS vehicles).

Committee Goals were reiterated:

1. MAP
2. Perception
3. Promote feedback from constituents
4. Legislative agenda