2009 Spring Minutes
OSCHE Spring Meeting
Lorain County Community College
Bass Library Learning Center (LC231)
Welcome – Tim Howard and Ken Collins welcomed everyone to the 2009 OSCHE Spring Quarterly Meeting held at Lorain County Community College. A Video Welcome from Dr. Roy Church, President of LCCC, was also presented. Lorrie Sawaie passed around an attendance sheet.
Attending: Celeste Baker, Paula Collier, Ken Collins, Saundra Daniels, Cheryl Engle, Julie Ford, Lena Friend, Lissia Gerber, Mandy Gollhofer, Tim Howard, Tammy Jordon, Bill Koshar, Teresa Lister, Gina Maxwell, Shavonne Morain, Kirk Nagley, Lorrie Sawaie, Tami Smith, Bob Stachowiak, Joanna Stoltzfus, Susan Thomas, Tamara Wright, and Elizabeth Yount.
Minute Approval: Lorrie Sawaie asked for any changes &/or corrections to the minutes. Discussion ensued on the election process and bylaws that were approved in the winter meeting concerning item 3.a.iii. which stated, “All nominations must be submitted to the Past Presidents Committee by no later than the Spring meeting”, and it was agreed that “by no later than the Spring meeting” should be stricken from the bylaw and add, “Nominees will be announced at the Spring meeting.” Tim Howard asked for a motion to approve the changes, Shavonne Morain made the motion and Tammy Jordan seconded the motion to amend the bylaw 3.a.iii. A vote was taken and the amendment was approved as well as the minutes with these changes.
Treasurers Report: Tami Smith reported that the current balance with membership fees paid is $4,832.91. Columbus State’s fees are still in the posting process and Cheryl Engle reported that Ohio State’s fees are currently in the purchase order process from both 2007-08 & 2008-09 and she will follow up on this. If your school has not paid its dues, please do so as soon as possible. A motion was made by Lena Friend to accept the treasurer’s report, seconded by Saundra Daniels and the motion passed.
Website Update: As per Brad Nicodemus’s resignation Mandy Gollhofer has taken over the updates and additions to the new website and is working out the bugs with some assistance from Brad. OSU is no longer the hosting site and it has been moved to LCCC which is also our fiscal agent as this time. Ken Collins and Cheryl Engle will also be assisting Mandy in this transition of host sites and webmaster/domains. Tim Howard asked for a creation of a Website Ad Hoc Committee which will include Ken Collins, Bob Stachowiak, Cheryl
Engle and Mandy Gollhofer with assistance from Brad Nicodemus. This Ad Hoc Committee will report back at the summer conference on their progress with the WebPages and listproc. Once this is running smoothly Mandy and Cheryl will be the new webmasters and a more permanent Website Committee will be considered at the Summer Conference in Sinclair. The new link for OSCHE’s website is at www.ohiostaffcouncil.org/ which is currently down for moving of the domain and updating of all current information.
Political Activity Policy (Chapter 124): BGSU brought this issue to the table and their CSC handouts were passed around as well as a copy of Chapter 124.01 & 124.57 ORC & OU’s Policy and Procedures. Celeste Baker stated that as classified staff we are exempt as we are not “Civil Service of the State” or “Service of the State” and did not take a civil service exam to get our jobs. It clearly states in 124.01 (k) “Service of the state” or “civil service of the state” includes all offices and positions of trust or employment with the government of the state. “Service of the state” and “civil service of the state” does not include offices and positions of trust or employment with state-supported colleges and universities, counties, cities, city health districts, city school districts, general health districts, and civil service townships of the state. It was suggested a copy of the draft “Guidelines Regarding Political Activity by Classified Staff of BGSU” be given to our General Counsel and Board of Trustees to show lack of legality before it can be placed in our handbooks. The group as a whole felt it was unacceptable as a policy guideline.
IUC-HR Meeting Update: President, Tim Howard, Ken Collins and Mandy Gollhofer attended the meeting with the IUC-HR in February of 2009. They met with the HR representatives at four year universities only. Jim Kemper presented OSCHE reps to the council. Discussions hinged on an open relationship policy between the 2 committees, how to get in line with the Ohio System of Universities and tuition reciprocity. Bill Koshar and Cheryl Engle were asked to look into the possibility with Larry Llewellyn of 2-year and 4-year colleges meeting together in the future.
Guest Speaker – Mr. Keith Brown, Director of Campus Security (LCCC) - Mr. Brown presented a program called “LCCC’s Emergency Alert System” which was used recently on campus for evacuation due to fire in the tunnels on Feb. 18, 2009. These tunnels are “Public Access” but that may change in the future due to this deliberate act of setting fires there by a community member that was attending GED classes. The tunnels will be segmented by fire doors in the future. The alert system used was an Akron based system called “WENS” and cost about $6,700 initially for set up and $2,000.00 annually for 4,000 to 15,000 students. Rates may vary based on student enrollment numbers. There were no injuries and all were evacuated safely due to this new alert system and exemplary jobs done by the response officers.
Lunch Break – FAB Lab Tour
Bylaws Revision/Election Process: Section 3. Election amendment were discussed and voted upon by the group as a whole to make such changes as you see below:
§3. Elections
a. Officer Candidate Selection
i. All active members or alternates are eligible to run for office.
ii. Nominations will be solicited beginning at the winter meeting and nominees will be announced at the spring meeting.
iii. All nominations must be submitted to the Past Presidents Committee.
iv. The Past Presidents Committee will oversee the election process. Duties of this Committee include, but are not limited to:
a. Soliciting members to run for an office
b. Distributing any information nominees wish to send to all voting members
c. Conducting the election.
b. Election Process
i. Elections will be held during the Summer Conference.
ii. The Chair, Secretary, and Parliamentarian shall be elected in odd-numbered years.
iii. The Vice-Chair and Treasurer shall be elected in even-numbered years.
iv. Elections with two or more nominees will be held by paper ballot.
v. A nominee will be declared the winner by the highest number of votes.
vi. Absentee ballots may be cast two weeks prior to the election by submission of an electronic ballot. Means of the electronic absentee ballot will be made available to the voting members by no later than two weeks after the spring meeting.
vii. In the case of a tie vote between candidates of the same office, the Past Presidents Committee, (in attendance), will cast the deciding vote:
a. The Past Presidents Committee will retire to a separate meeting to discuss the candidates and come to a unanimous decision regarding the tie-breaking vote. The Past Presidents Committee will then return to the OSCHE Council where the Chairperson of the Committee will announce the decision.
These will be added to the bylaws and website as quickly as possible and all schools posting OSCHE bylaws should also update their respective websites with the new info taken from the new website located at http://www.ohiostaffcouncil.org when it is up and running again.
Election Nominations: Current nominations were:
President
Ken Collins – LCCC (accepted)
Shavonne Morain – OSU (declined)
Dee Teed - MU (not accepted as of present date)
Parliamentarian
Shavonne Morain – OSU (accepted)
Secretary
Cheryl Engle – OSU (accepted)
Lorrie Sawaie – BGSU (accepted)
Sue Thomas – CSCC (accepted)
All were given five minutes to give an election speech and bring forth their idealisms. Elections will take place at the OSCHE Summer Conference during the official “Executive Business for Officers and School Reps” meeting to be held on Thursday, June 18th, 2009 at Sinclair Community College.
Layoffs & Cutbacks to Employees:
Akron – Lissa Gerber reported there were no layoffs and a 10% operating budget reduction scenario was up for discussion in the future if further cutbacks were necessary.
BGSU – Lorrie Sawaie reported 43 administrative contracts were cancelled and 16 were amended for cost effectiveness from 12 months to 9 month contracts, hiring freeze in place, reorganization going on, 20 classified staff were to be laid off but due to the bumping process in place only 14 were let go with no severance pay.
CSCC – Teresa Lister and Mandy Gollhofer reported realignments and not replacing employees that leave due to retirement, highest enrollment ever; some grant money is gone for administrative staffing.
LCCC – Tim Howard reported there will be no layoffs at Lorain
OSU – Shavonne Morain reported no furloughs, no pay cuts to their 50 thousand employees. The Senior Vice President says they will use their “Rainy Day Funds” if necessary and there will be no salary increases for senior administrators.
Ohio U – Tammy Jordan reported 19 employees may start the bumping process on May 1st and the university will create severance packages for those left unemployed and are offering a One-Year Buyout for early retirement.
SCC – Kirk Nagley reported Sinclair is having its highest enrollment ever and there will be no layoffs.
WSU – All departments are being asked to take a 4% cut to operating budgets, decrease travel expenses and there will be no raised for administrators. Wright State is not expecting any layoffs at this time and any saved dollars will go into student scholarship funds.
Hot Topics:
OSCHE Summer Conference Information presented by Kirk Nagley for the June 18 & 19 Conference:
Credit Cards will not be accepted for the Summer Conference registration. Checks should be sent to Sinclair Community College in the amount of $65 per registrant minus the one free admission with dues paid up for the AY2008-09. Theme will be “Workplace Improvement”. A block of hotels have been reserved in the Crown Plaza and the group rate code is OSC for $82.00 per night. The Officer’s EXEC Mtg. will be held on Thursday morning at 10:00 a.m. and conference sign in will be from 12-1 p.m. at Sinclair with the Conference beginning at 1 p.m. on Thursday. Hope to see you all there.
Reminder: All OSCHE dues for AY 2008-09 were due on Dec. 31th, 2008. If you have not paid yours, please do so immediately. Thank you.
Meeting adjourned at 3:10 p.m.