Academic Staff Executive Committee Minutes 03-30-17

Approved 4-6-17

ASEC Minutes
2:00 – 4:30 p.m. Thursday, March 30, 2017
55 Bascom Hall


Members Present:  Bruno Browning; Aaron Crandall; Jenny Dahlberg; Sarah Kuba; Michael Moscicke; Mallory Musolf; Robert Newsom; Deb Shapiro

Guests: Michael Bernard-Donals, Rebecca Blank, Laurent Heller

The meeting was called to order at 2:04 p.m.

The minutes of March 23, 2017, were approved.

General Reports
Vice Chair Bruno Browning reported that he, Kevin, and Heather held their monthly meeting with Wayne Guthrie, Mark Walters and Patrick Sheehan from OHR. Patrick will be coming to the May 4 ASEC meeting to discuss personnel files and the forthcoming training program on awareness and prevention of sexual violence.
Secretary of the Academic Staff Heather Daniels reported that Patrick Sims met with the University Committee and reported on the student climate survey. His office is analyzing the data at present, and will use a similar process as the Sexual Assault Climate Survey Task Force to look at the results and formulate action items. ASPRO and PROFS will be hosting a forum on the state’s proposed switch to self-insurance on April 13 at 4pm in Grainger Hall. Heather attended a lunch-and-learn session with the International Division CASI to discuss job security and pay tools with them. She also reported that Heather Mc Fadden is meeting with UW-Madison reps from the Titling and Total Compensation Advisory Committee, along with HR personnel, about communications.

Guest: Laurent Heller, Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration
Laurent reported that there is a draft contract for the Amazon pickup point. It will be located at Sellery Hall where the bike racks are currently. Laurent has talked about the pickup point with all of the governance groups, and he reported that the students seem to be in favor of this location. The contract will be discussed at the April Board of Regents Meeting. If approved, the intent would be for construction to take place in the summer with opening targeted for fall.

Laurent mentioned that there have been ongoing discussions about the budget allocation formula at the System level. There isn’t likely to be more news about any possible changes to the formula until after the budget passes. Laurent also reported that the Audit Committee met earlier in the day with the Legislative Audit Bureau about an audit of the various UW Foundations across UW System.

Guest: Michael Bernard-Donals, Vice Provost for Faculty and Staff
Michael provided an update on the Family Leave Committee. They have met twice, and they will be doing research on peer institutions for the rest of the academic year, comparing those policies all leave policies here. Michael mentioned that he was looking at the University of Michigan, and it looked as though their policies were comparable to ours. The committee will then pick a small subset of peers and do in-depth interviews to probe further. After this, the committee will be able to make proposals and provide cost estimates. ASEC recommended that Michael ensure that Mercer is also informed about the committee’s work.

Michael also reported that preliminary data on the Discretionary Compensation Fund exercise are in. While the data have not yet been broken down by school/college/division, Michael was looking for the extent to which the DCF and the faculty block grant were being used to address equity and compression issues. For all academic staff pay adjustments (including DCF), it appears as though a third of the money for base-building was for equity/compression, about half was for performance, and the rest was for sub-codings of market adjustments. Michael is talking with Wayne Guthrie and Mary Luther about definitions for these codes, and he also recommended that ASEC get the DCF data from Mary to provide to the Compensation and Economic Benefits Committee.

Finally, Michael discussed the process flow document for the Titling and Total Compensation Study. He asked Mary to supply all of the names for all of the different teams. ASEC provided feedback to Michael that, even after two meetings, there is still some confusion about the process. ASEC is appointing a committee to advise the academic staff rep to the Campus Collaboration Team.

Guest: Rebecca Blank, Chancellor

Chancellor Blank reported on the state budget. There will be some form of performance metrics. There is uncertainty regarding the pay plan, due to its relation to savings from the proposed change to self-insurance. On the capital budget front, System received all-agency maintenance money, but there were only 7 building projects funded across System, and none at UW-Madison. UW System is trying to get bonding authority for its own project revenue building projects. The Legislative Fiscal Bureau will analyze any non-budgetary items in the budget and set them aside for further consideration by the Joint Committee on Finance. She also discussed the status of potential bills on fetal tissue research and campus carry legislation. Recently proposed legislation for concealed carry maintains the exception that allows campuses to forbid weapons on campus.

Moving to the federal budget, Chancellor Blank reported that deep cuts to research are being proposed, but there are not many details about the proposals at present. There is strong bipartisan support for NIH, but NSF, Department of Energy, and climate research funding dollars are likely at risk. Chancellor Blank has discussed the necessity for bridge funding with Marsha Mailick.

Discussing the Titling and Total Compensation Study, Chancellor Blank’s two main goals are: 1) to have a clearer set of titles with mobility and that are consistent with peers, and 2) compensation benchmarked in a reasonable manner. The study will give UW-Madison reliably comparable information for staff, similar to what already exists for faculty, to address equity and compression issues. ASEC expressed its concern regarding the communication for this project so far as well as the constitution of the Campus Collaboration Team.

Business
•    April Assembly Agenda
ASEC discussed moving the districting business to 4:30. Motion to approve the agenda as amended (Dahlberg). Seconded. Approved.
•    Charge for Ad Hoc Committee on TTC Academic Staff Communications
ASEC reviewed a draft charge for this committee and made some revisions. Heather will send out a survey to gauge interest in serving on the committee. Motion to approve the charge (Moscicke). Seconded. Approved.

Meeting adjourned at 4:16 p.m.

Minutes submitted by Jake Smith, Deputy Secretary of the Academic Staff


KeywordsASEC Minutes   Doc ID72529
OwnerLesley F.GroupThe Office of the Secretary/ Academic Staff
Created2017-04-11 16:37:54Updated2020-07-13 15:15:12
SitesThe Office of the Secretary/ Academic Staff
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