Staff Senate Minutes: October 13, 2004

President Kathy Cartwright called the meeting to order at 1:15pm in the Arcola/Tuscola Room.

President Hencken shared that the FY05 budget is the same as FY04; however, it is about $11 million less than three years ago.  Three specific legislators supported the prevention of a 2% budget recession for FY05. Not filling positions, tuition and fee increases, and increased enrollment is helping to compensate for some of the shortage.  EIU hosted an open house for potential students and their parents on Monday 10/11/04.  It will not be until around February the FY06 budget can be better projected.  The Office of the Executive Inspector General has provided an on-line ethics course that must be completed between 10/18/04-11/17/04 for all state employees.  The Fine Arts Building is on track and construction may start around February/March.  7^th Street will eventually be closed; however, there will be access for emergency equipment.  Blair Hall will have more classrooms, attention is being focused on restoring the historical structure, and it will be completed in 9-12 months once construction begins.  The next Board of Trustees meeting is 11/18/04.  It is encouraged to allow staff flextime or compensatory time during the holiday break if staff would like time off.  Each area will determine operational needs. 

VP Cooley shared that Kronos was stopped until the infrastructure was stable since the payroll function is critical.  Kronos is a stand-alone time and attendance program which will interface with Banner.  The Kronos Committee recently was reactivated.  The core product of Banner is the finance portion which may be activated in 2+ years and the second portion to be activated is the human resources portion.  Student Payroll may go to semi-monthly once all students use electronic phone transfer (EFT) to automatically deposit their paychecks. 

VP Nilsen shared that an employee must be working, not retired and not on disability, for their children to receive the 50% tuition waiver (among the other qualifications needed).

Sandy Bowman, the Ethics Training Administrator, communicated the 9^th Street Hall hours for Ethics Training and the Gregg Triad Computer Lab is also available.  Anyone who receives a paycheck, including student workers, must complete this.  She is available for questions at 581-6402 and the Help Desk at 581-4357.  This training will be conducted annually.

Lori Creek announced the newly elected Civil Service Council Executive Committee is Katie Rice, President; Lori Creek, Vice President; and Tami Duzan, Secretary.  This is effective October 12, 2004.  The agenda for the Council of Councils for 10/15/04 at NIU was circulated which Lisa Standerfer and Tami Duzan will attend.  

The web address http://www.eiu.edu/~acaffair/NCA/draft.htm was shared and feedback is requested at campus open sessions by the end of October.  Both the Staff Senate minutes of May and September were approved.  Senator Spraker voiced a communication from the EIU EAC representative, Julie Benedict.           

Elections were held and the FY05 Staff Senate Officers are:

President:         Kathy Cartwright                        Treasurer:                   Mosezell Magee
Vice President: Sandy Bingham-Porter                Secretary & Website:  Janice Spraker

Three Senators volunteered to serve on the University Union Advisory Committee:  Mosezell Magee, Zoraida Irizarry and Tom Leonard.  They will meet November 8.

The next meeting is November 10, 2004, in the Schahrer Room  in the Union.  Our meetings are always open and everyone is welcome to attend.  If anyone has any questions or issues that they would like us to ask at our next meeting, please let one of the Senators know.  The list of Senators and their email address are at http://www.eiu.edu/~stfsenat/members.htm

Respectfully submitted:
Janice Spraker                      

Please email any corrections to: Janice Spraker

Please contact the Staff Senate for further assistance.

Last updated: November 1, 2004

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