Staff Council Corner

The FAS Team responded to feedback provided them in our January meeting with several communication improvements. These include but are not limited to increase in the attention to and the priority of MAC issues, relaxing the time-out and lock-out settings to more tolerant levels, establishment of the SAP Support Council, increased functionality of budget reports, and addition of staff support for routine procurement and account management functions. The SAP Support Council is a team of partners; one partner represents the FAS Team and the other partner represents a division or college. These division and college representatives are Martha Bird, Gail Robinson, Betty Boyd, Kindra Colgin, Sarah Pivonka, Sylvia Mobley, Deborah McDaniel, Georgia Teague, Dianna Richards, Debra Banks, Kate Robbins, Patricia Prado, JaNelle Barnes, Jo Ann Gardner, Carolyn Holesovsky and Julie Bertrand. Everyone should recognize one of these individuals as their representative and should be communicating implementation issues to them regularly. This Council will be the communication conduit for functional concerns as long as is necessary. Thanks go to Ted Trip and his group for this increased effort to assist users.

Some time ago, Staff Council submitted a Proposal for Compensation for Classified Employees On-call to the President’s Council. At the time that PC considered the proposal, there were questions that required answers before a decision could be made. The data required to answer those questions has now been accumulated by the Compensation and Benefits Committee and a letter will soon be drafted to PC with answers to their questions. The basics of the proposal are that, since many other higher education institutions compensate their employees for being on stand-by to answer and/or report for work issues after regular work hours, then Texas State should establish a policy to do this as well. The recommendation is that “staff be compensated for on call carrying the pager at the rate of 1.0 hour per day at the appropriate” pay rate. Also that “staff be compensated for call backs at a minimum of 2 hours pay at the appropriate” pay rate and that “staff be compensated for call backs during official university holidays at a minimum of 3 hours pay at the appropriate” pay rate. I know there have been many questions about the status of this issue. I hope this clears up the mystery.

Finally, there are many stories about Blue Cross/Blue Shield changes which involve Central Texas Medical Center. Information that I have received from Human Resources leads me to believe that they, as well as University Administration, are very closely in touch with the situation and acting in our best interest. I would suggest we not be overly concerned until we get official information from our HR department which will certainly be forthcoming when there is a change.

The agenda for April Staff Council has yet to be determined although there are a number of issues we are considering. Please watch for an announcement from the Provost office about a week before the meeting to learn what our topics will be. As always, contact your Council representatives if you have questions, concerns, or comments.

Pam
5-2833
pg11@txstate.edu

Staff Council meetings are always open to all and are held monthly each second Tuesday at 10 am. The April meeting will be held in LBJ Student Center 3-3.1.