August 2022 Staff Council Newsletter

Officers’ Reports President Ronnie Houchin Ronnie Houchin would like to provide us with a few updates from Staff Alliance. Dawn Humenik from UAA was elected as chair of Staff Alliance, and Lauren Hartmen from the system office was elected as vice chair. Alliance is working on the compensation memo that will include specific funding requests. Alliance is working on the plan for the staff development funding allocated by President Pat Pitney. More information to come as those details are lined out. There has been discussion at the alliance level to start planning for staff recognition and development day much sooner and identifying a date. The President asked the governance groups to come together on a committee looking at ways to implement the compensation philosophy. Alliance will have a retreat in Juneau in September. Alliance asked Memry Dahl to re-engage with the Staff Council and HR as a whole to have consistent communication. Vice President Kari Mellmer Kari Mellmer states she is appreciative to Margo for the inclusivity presentation and she will consider that when planning the Staff Development and Appreciation Day.

August Meeting Highlights and Announcements We have a number of vacant seats in Staff Council. The odd units will be up for election this fall. If you know of individuals in those units that may be interested please let us know. FY23 Staff Council meetings will remain online.  FY24 Compensation memo and recommendations: Staff alliance has been invited by the president to submit a list of compensation ideas for consideration.  We have been encouraged to think broadly and consider what items would be beneficial for staff.  The Onboarding & Orientation Committee is evaluating the needs for UAF. They put out a survey in July to those that have been hired in the last 5 years. The committee is analyzing the results and developing some recommendations. The committee feels we will probably need a person to manage onboarding and orientation. UAA has Aumbra Austin who has been working on this for the past year. Which seems to have been very successful for UAA. More details to come as that committee continues their work.

 

Chancellor White & Vice Chancellor Queen

FY23: In our FY23 budget there were a relatively small number of governor vetoes. We received additional funding for compensation that is being added to base. We received funding for a series of research projects including mining and minerals, oil and oil recovery, unmanned aerial systems and some nuclear power and energy initiatives. This research funding will last up to two years.  The research projects and economic development projects across the system were around $30 million including UAA and UAS projects. 

Vice Chancellor Queen states we have really bright news for FY23. The FY22 general fund was just under $137 million for UAF, and moving into FY23 we are starting with $169 million. We have projects that are on a two year window and are around $25 million of that new amount. The new base amount includes compensation increases, insurance and risk increases, other fixed cost obligations and some facilities maintenance funding. Which is very helpful because we've been cutting that for the last several years. We are trying to do proactive and preventative maintenance so we don't have as much deferred maintenance. Those additional total $3.7 million to support those fixed cost increases. We received $2 million in support of the Alaska Center for Energy and Power for energy initiatives. As well as UAF teacher education funding around $500 thousand. Mariculture research and development received $5 million for a 2 year project.This will be a collaboration between Sea Grant, College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, and the Alaska Blue Economy Center. Faculty will be collaborating from UAF, UAA and UAS.The capital project approved the Moore Bartlett Skarland renovations that improve the plumbing as well as other updates to the building. This will go to the board for approval of a 14 month construction schedule.

FY24: August 10th UAF will submit our FY24 budget to President Pitney. It is very much the same as our old budget except we're asking for an additional $7.5 million to try to fill in some areas that have been significantly reduced over the years. President Pitney asked that we keep our request to $5 million to backfill areas that need support. 

President Pitney will take our FY24 budget request, balance it with UAA and UAS’s requests and prepare a budget presentation for the September Board of Regents meeting. The Board will evaluate the budget in September and vote on it in November. In November, with a finalized budget, the Board will submit the budget to the Governor. 

We think it's a positive sign that we're again asking for an increased budget. President Pitney has some sense that we have some potential with this governor or with whoever our new governor will be that we would potentially receive additional funds.

Campus Health and Safety: 

President Pitney remains the decision authority on covid vaccinations and at this time the university will not require a covid vaccine for the residence halls or to attend classes. President Pitney will continue to review individual exception requests that are routed through Chancellor White. Chancellor White makes his recommendations based on input and recommendations from Tracey Martinson the Director at Environmental Health, Safety and Risk Management. For example the Sikuliaq and Toolik field vaccination requests will be reviewed and recommendations will be provided to President Pitney. 

Masking requirements for units or classes can be requested, they are evaluated by Tracey and recommendations are submitted to the Chancellor. These requests are evaluated with community protection in mind, and areas with high contact and high intensity. Students with individuals with health concerns can refer to student health and counseling for medical accommodations. Staff and faculty with individual health concerns should refer to HR for medical accommodations. Are current covid guidelines are based on the following levels: 

• Green (low): Masks required in health care settings. Masks optional elsewhere. No capacity restrictions on non-ticketed events.
• Yellow (medium): Masks required in health care settings. Masks optional elsewhere. For events with more than 100 attendees, masks are strongly encouraged. Some events may have masking requirements.
• Orange (high): Masks highly recommended indoors. Masks optional outdoors. Consider moving events to virtual format.

You can check COVID-19 community levels at any time by visiting the UAF COVID-19 dashboard. Community levels are updated weekly on Friday.

Residence halls will not have separate halls for covid isolation. A number of universities went to room isolation last year and that is what the housing is proposed for this year. 

The Student Affairs Division is working on a monkeypox plan and different resident options for isolation of individuals. Monkeypox is not transmitted through the air so there’s a significant difference in concern for levels of transmission. 

Human Resources

Bryan Hoppough joins us today, he will be serving as the new Senior Business Parter for UAF. Brain recently retired from the National Guard and saw the opportunity to continue his HR profession. The Senior Business Partner is the liaison between UA HR and UAF campus providing guidance and advising with the leadership of the Chancellor. Bryan is available in 303A Eielson building. Bryan has been with UAF about 3 weeks and is looking forward to working with UAF Staff Council to provide information and resources.