Representative Council Meeting Minutes
March 9, 2017
W203B @ 11:00 PM
Members Present: Dave Michalak, Fred Loveland, Rob Woods, Alice Caroompas (for Richard Schleider), Brian Loy, Joan Lubar, Meghan McGuinness, Thomas Grace, Suzanne Hickok, Amanda Hollister, Jim Muccio, Suzanne Shepard, Tim Skinner, Jason Smith, Howard Streby, Dave Zeggert
Meeting called to order at 11:02 AM
New Business:
1.0 Minutes and Committee Report:
1.1 Minutes of 2/19/17 were approved. Motion: J. Muccio, Second Zeggert. Minutes passed unanimously.
1.2 Organizing Committee: Sample Surveys on impact of staffing cuts and morale distributed. Responses due March 17, 2017.
1.3 Tim Skinner reported that the Newsletter is on track to be out by Mid-March.
1.4 Jim Muccio reported that he has sent a “Slack” email to Rep Council to begin testing the “rapid text” plan for the next round of negotiations. If you receive the invitation, “accept,” the choose the app. He thinks this format will be excellent for discussion and other applications we may want down the road.
1.5 Negotiations Resource Committee: Howard Streby reported on Mike Lynch’s presentation to the NRC. His subcommittees are doing deep dives into the budget and will report back. We discussed audits of the SUNY Broome budget; no one is aware of a State Audit being done recently.
1.6 Contracts were distributed to Reps who were not at the last meeting. Please get the contracts to your constituents asap.
1.7 Alice Caroompas pointed out that there are errors in Article 8 with regard to Part-time adjuncts. She volunteered to submit the edits for review/correction.
1.8 Adjunct Committee: They will be meeting soon. They are working on recruitment and a survey of what adjuncts are looking for as we move forward.
1.9 Action Committee: Lorenz has created a contract index for Rep Council to review. Please let him know if things need to be added by next week. There was some discussion about the need for page numbers in addition to section numbers, but it was decided to keep the page numbers for easier reference.
2.0 Vice President’s Report:
2.1 Fred reported that MOU’s are still pending on MOOCs, Counseling, and Sick pay. They have met 3 times and are waiting for final review. Stay tuned.
2.2 There is a grievance pending, but details are withheld as it is a personnel matter.
2.3 Fred and Dave met with Mike Sullivan and established that there is NO BUDGET EMERGENCY! Fred encouraged the administration to get that message out.
2.4 Regarding mandated cuts in class sections, Fred asked how are they counted? Are cross-listed courses being counted separately or twice. Similar questions were raised with respect to lab sections.
3.0 Treasurer’s Report:
3.1 Rob reported that the Dental plan has changed for individual coverage. The Basic Plan covered by the College has some changes. See him if you have questions. March 30 is the end of Open Enrollment for Dental. The ceiling on our plan is $1000; the ceiling on the basic plan is $750.
3.2 Rob encouraged us to participate in the March Madness fundraiser for our scholarships. The scholarship committee is Julie Klepfer, Meghan McGuinness, and Tim Skinner.
4.0 President’s Report:
4.1 Dave reported that he has directed some questions to Mike Sullivan regarding NYSUT’s budget analysis. At the Chairs and Deans meeting, Mike Sullivan indicated that he is the expert and people should come to him for information.
Dave let Mike Sullivan know that we will address all questions to him as soon as the NRC budget subcommittee has completed their review. For example, there will be no funds used from the fund balance this academic year. It was stated in January that an excess of $400,000 would be used.
4.2 College Assembly Report from VPFA Sullivan: The Budget will be balanced by the end of the year.
4.3 Classification of the downtown Carnegie as a Historical Site is pending. This could bring an additional $4.5 million dollars to the project as tax credits.
4.4 With regard to Budget statistics: There has been a 3 % decrease in the percentage of the budget spent on Instruction over the last four years. At the same time, the Administrative budget has been overspent in every year. Watch your departmental budgets for any cuts/changes.
4.5 The $800,000 budget surplus from 2015-2016 and where it was spent remains unknown. Mike Lynch will present NYSUT’s finding next meeting, and Fred will continue to work with the NRC budget subcommittee as information is received.
Motion to adjourn made at 11:53 PM by J. Lubar seconded by J. Muccio. Unanimous.
Respectfully submitted,
Suzanne Shepard
Acting FA Secretary
SUNY Broome Community College 