STCC PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION MEMBERSHIP MEETING MINUTES

February 19, 2004  

Location:  13/114

Call to Order:  12:45

Reports and Announcements

Secretary's Report, Minutes of December 4, 2003, Lynn Kleindienst
Motion to accept, Maureen O'Brien, Bob Rodgers.   Passed.

Treasurer's Report , Ken Czuchra
Ken presented Category Summary and Net-worth reports as of 2/19/04, and also explained how he does his report and where the monies come from.

Carol mentioned that all STCC PA officers receive stipends.

Bob Rodgers asked if figure in report was for the year; Ken said that it was for half a year.   Another stipend will be distributed before the end of the fiscal year.

Motion to accept, Terry Glanville, Louis Gentile.   Passed.

• Ken spoke about the Campus Coverage - STCC Newspaper which was restarted in November 2003 the first issue is being distributed today.   The newspaper is looking for articles and stories. Any articles should be sent to Student Activities. Ken is not sure when the next issue will be published.

President, Carol Mathison

• Carol gave the final count of retirees which was 32, 16 of them were from MCCC. Six retirees have returned as adjuncts but we are down 8 full time MCCC members.
• Carol welcomed all the Bldg. Reps and asked them to welcome their new members.   An updated Rep list is being compiled and will be sent out to the Bldg. Reps. Carol and Maureen are working on an updated full time member list as well as a separate DSCE member list that will be on Groupwise.   Hopefully, the new DSCE list will allow us to reach adjuncts via email.
• In Mediation right now with management is a proposal for SCE to receive biweekly pay. The dilemma in moving to a biweekly pay has to do with the late date for turning in final class lists from DCE and then getting the information to HRCMS in coordination with payroll dates.
• Carol said that at the next meeting she is hoping to have a live demo of the message board that will be on the STCC PA website.
• A nominating committee has been formed for April's election of officers and the nominations forms should be sent out in mid March.
• There is an agreement under way for faculty to teach Distance Ed classes under the day workload.
• Charlie Knight was chosen by the MCCC to be a Student Intern in the Statehouse for this semester.
• Three faculty members responded to having a Legislator come into their class and speak. Representative Don Humason will be in contact with faculty to set up a schedule for speaking.

SAC Report, Sandra Cutler

• Every Legislator received a holiday card from MCCC.   It asked them if they would like to come to the Community Colleges and speak to the students.   Unfortunately this is their busy season and not too many have responded.
• New membership brochures have been created and will be distributed through Bldg. Reps.
• Still looking at the update on the 10 comparison states for the classification.   The Board of Higher Ed is the one holding out on this because to do the study costs $100,000 and there is no money.   The MCCC is looking at comparison states to get a feel internally themselves.
• MCCC focus is on the points because they are part of the classification and it is what the current contract is based on.   Everything else is on the backburner.   MCCC is working on a new bill to present contract again to the Legislature for funding.
• Legislative breakfast on campus, April 23, 2004.
• Speaking on behalf of Phil Kennedy PAC needs more contributions.   STCC PA sent $200.00 to PAC.
• Two joint committees are looking at faculty workload, Professional staff and research projects.   They are bringing in John Lee from NEA to help out with some of the issues these committees are looking into regarding the next contract negotiations.
• Bob Rodgers wants to know what was used for the base year for the salary comparison. Sandy will ask the question at the Board meeting.

Roberta Albano, Vice President

•  In the 1980s there was a hiring practice where people were integrated into the system and were paid from 03 monies. Presently there is a bill in place (Bill 1521) written by Senator Menard, which states that you had to be an 03 employee for two years in order to buy back the time.   This impacts a lot of people.   There is now a union effort to override this bill so employees can buy back their time. A questionnaire that was distributed statewide received about 185 responses from the 15 Community Colleges. Once information has been compiled there will be a meeting with Senator Menard to request he file a revised bill and then we will really be proactive for this bill.   It is going to be a long process but well worth doing.

Grievance Coordinator, Maureen Bourbeau

• There has been a slight process change on the UPPC Tenure Committee which has to do with the language of the contract.   It says that there should be a letter of recommendation from the Dean and a letter of recommendation from the UPPC committee that go separately to the Vice President. Past history has been that the letter from the Dean goes into the personnel file and the UPPC Committee sees it.   That is not what the contract states.   The committee should be making their recommendation based on the information in the person's file as it relates to tenure and independent of the Dean's recommendation. It should be only the Vice President who takes these two letters into consideration and if there is a difference of opinion then have a meeting. The process will be changed starting next year and new guideline for the UPPC Committee will be written.
• Issues have arisen regarding salary for new employees in Health & Technology fields because salary caps of classification study are below market value. There is an arbitration scheduled for September regarding the salary caps on the classification study. Maureen will try to get more information from Katie D'urzo.
• The contract article on workload does speak to the 15 contract hours and if someone is at 14, the Dean can assign advisees to bring workload up to the 15 hours as long as it doesn't cause an overload in total instructional hours.

GPO/WEP Update, Carole Dupont

• On the Social Security issue there are 9 new sponsors in the house which brings the total to 289.   There are still 146 not on board. This is the last year of the 108 th Congress so at the end of December 2004 all these bills will be null and void and we will have to start over.
• Weekly, call and email your Representatives in the District office as well as in DC to ask for support to get this bill out of committee.
• There has been talk about a Discharge Petition which is a resolution to get this bill brought directly to the floor. The two sponsors of the bill are against this because they want a little more time.
• In our own state there has been a Petition brought to the floor by Brad Jones and Sue Tucker, signed by Romney and sent to the Legislature in Washington, to call upon Congress to immediately repeal the GPO/WEP.

Presidential Search Update, Carol Mathison

• There were 59 applicants and 13 candidates were chosen for interviews. No courtesy interviews were given. Interviews start on February 24 and five to seven finalists will be chosen.   The Trustees will then take over the interviews for the finalists, currently scheduled for early April.
• Carol would like to have a reception and an open forum for the finalists and is looking for a committee of 3 or more people to write consensus reports from these receptions.
• The students will organize their own session for the finalists.
• George Leslie, Martha Gabrenas, and Dan Hebert volunteered to be on the committee to write questions to ask the finalists.

Motion to adjourn, 1:48 P.M.   Sandy Cutler, Bob Rodgers.   Passed.

Acting Secretary,

Jane Kmon