March 17, 2008 Meeting of Administrative Council

Paula Kaufman, chair, Adriana Cuervo (for Bill Maher), Tony Hynes, Bill Mischo (for Tina Chrzastowski), Sue Searing, Mary Stuart, Tom Teper, Scott Walter, David Ward, Karen Wei, Greg Youngen

1. Budget Review Process and Budget Hearing Update -Kaufman 
   EC vetted a draft of the budget before it was presented at the budget meeting. The meeting included three members of the CBOC (Hawisher, Petros, and Romano), Micke Andrechak, and the Provost.

They had a good conversation about the many aspects of the Library. The Provost promised a modest faculty salary program. They were very interested in facilities issues and in providing faculty with content. The Provost will be making a presentation to the board. She will be suggesting a $50 million bond for maintenance on the Library

There will be a budget meeting at 6pm on March 18 at Parkland. Paula feels it may be interesting to a number of people. Naomi Jakobsson and Chapin Rose will be present.

2.     GA Appointment Process –Walter 
   There are several issues with the appointment process in the past.
3. Some people didn’t get appointment letters.
4. Not everyone uses the same template for letters so there are inconsistencies
5. Problems with the budget – some people over spent, some people under spent, so it balanced out in the end. This year the budget is too tight to take that chance.

Our GA proposal and review process has afforded Budget Group members a clearer view of the contributions that GAs make across the Library, and our collaboration with GSLIS on early recruitment of GAs has afforded several Library faculty members an early introduction to the incoming class. As a complement to these new approaches to GA recruitment, and in response to new calls from Academic Human Resources for increased monitoring of the appointment process, we now call your attention to a change in the way offers will be made to GAs, beginning with the appointments to be made for the upcoming year.

With the incoming class, Library Human Resources will be responsible for preparing and issuing offer letters to Graduate Assistants. By coordinating all offers through Library HR, we will meet campus demands for standard appointment processes, and we will bring our appointment process for pre-professional Graduate Assistants into line with our existing processes for professional staff. As of this announcement, no offers of GA appointment (verbal or written) should be made by individual units or GA supervisors; instead, units and/or supervisors should submit appointment recommendations to Donna Hoffman using the form linked to below. Library HR will verify terms of appointment and will send offer letters and related materials to candidates. This appointment process will apply to all GA appointments made or paid for by the Library, but does not apply to Graduate Hourly employees.

GA supervisors wishing to recommend that an offer of appointment be made by the Library should make use of the following Web form:
https://webtools.uiuc.edu/formBuilder/OrganizationSecure?id=6293049

This form should be used for all GA appointments, both for new students and for continuing students. This form should be used for all GA appointments where the Library is making the appointment and paying the salary. Supervisors of GAs appointed and paid through other units (e.g., History, Computer Science, College of Law) should not make use of this form, but should follow whatever appointment procedures have been established by the responsible department or college.

A follow-up message will come from Library HR within the next few days with further details on the GA appointment process, as well as information on the population of the GA candidate database. We recognize that several offers of continued appointment have already been made by individual unit heads and GA supervisors, and Library HR will work with each of these cases to ensure that the appointment process meets the campus standard for pre-professional GAs. If you have made such an offer, please contact Donna immediately so that she can obtain the necessary information and prepare the appropriate documentation.

3. Draft Policy on Use of Administrative Space – Walter 
   (see attached policy)

The only problem is if we list any of rooms as classrooms, it makes us vulnerable to F&S, which could decide to claim any unused hours for other departments on campus. There will be an additional policy coming out regarding instructional space (291 UGL, 225B Slavic, etc).

4.     Hours of Operation – Walter

The Budget Group, at their meeting this afternoon, will start working on the student assistant allocations. We know from what every unit head has told us that those decisions have an impact on hours of operation. As Paula noted, we also have this push from the Campus about maintaining open hours. We made a clear statement about our budgetary needs for that, both in the budget report and budget meeting. We made it clear what the gap is and the impact will be.

We are still going to have to plan. We are not likely going to have our budget allocation until well into the summer session. We need to start working on a scenario where we might have a significant cut. Rod has mentioned that we need to make up approximately $260,000 from this year. That is the $225,000 we received as one-time money for FY2008 minimum wage increase, and $35,000 expected for the FY 2009 minimum wage increase. We have to cut $260,000 just to stay even.

Paula commented that the Provost made it clear that when we pay off our loans ($300,000), she expects us to invest that money in improving faculty and AP salaries. Not in growing the size of the faculty and not in student wages. At this point we don’t know if they will restore the $260,000 or not. So we have to plan as if we have to cut that amount of money.

Lots of things could happen. We might not have to give back the $300,000 we put back this year for rescission, which we could potentially use to pay off our debt early. There are a lot of ‘ifs’ between now and July 1.

As part of that planning, given the fact that student wages are directly related to hours of service, Budget Group will be working with Paula to discuss a consistent approach across the Library to open hours, to use of staff, and to number of students. We don’t have this mapped out, but we are going to be looking at this because there is not other way for us to engage the budgeting exercise if we don’t look at this issue. We have to look at potential tiered approaches to service hours knowing that we have made public statements and have received public support for extended hours in Grainger and UGL and our desire to maintain or enhance services at the ACES Library. We will have to look at differences between a small

5.    GA Exit Interview Process Review
       Walter
   10 minutes

   6. Updates and Announcements
      20 minutes

1.     Budget Review Process and Budget Hearing Update -Kaufman
EC vetted a draft of the budget before it was presented at the budget meeting. The meeting included three members of the CBOC (Hawisher, Petros, and Romano), Mike Andrechak, and the Provost.

They had a good conversation about the many aspects of the Library. The Provost promised a modest faculty salary program. They were very interested in facilities issues and in providing faculty with content. The Provost will be making a presentation to the board. She will be suggesting a $50 million bond for maintenance on the Library

There will be a budget meeting at 6pm on March 18 at Parkland. Paula feels it may be interesting to a number of people. Naomi Jakobsson and Chapin Rose will be present.

2.     GA Appointment Process –Walter
There are several issues with the appointment process in the past.
1). Some people didn’t get appointment letters.

2). Not everyone uses the same template for letters so there are inconsistencies

3). Problems with the budget – some people over spent, some people under spent, so it balanced out in the end. This year the budget is too tight to take that chance.

Our GA proposal and review process has afforded Budget Group members a clearer view of the contributions that GAs make across the Library, and our collaboration with GSLIS on early recruitment of GAs has afforded several Library faculty members an early introduction to the incoming class. As a complement to these new approaches to GA recruitment, and in response to new calls from Academic Human Resources for increased monitoring of the appointment process, we now call your attention to a change in the way offers will be made to GAs, beginning with the appointments to be made for the upcoming year.

With the incoming class, Library Human Resources will be responsible for preparing and issuing offer letters to Graduate Assistants. By coordinating all offers through Library HR, we will meet campus demands for standard appointment processes, and we will bring our appointment process for pre-professional Graduate Assistants into line with our existing processes for professional staff. As of this announcement, no offers of GA appointment (verbal or written) should be made by individual units or GA supervisors; instead, units and/or supervisors should submit appointment recommendations to Donna Hoffman using the form linked to below. Library HR will verify terms of appointment and will send offer letters and related materials to candidates. This appointment process will apply to all GA appointments made or paid for by the Library, but does not apply to Graduate Hourly employees.

GA supervisors wishing to recommend that an offer of appointment be made by the Library should make use of the following Web form:
https://webtools.uiuc.edu/formBuilder/OrganizationSecure?id=6293049

This form should be used for all GA appointments, both for new students and for continuing students. This form should be used for all GA appointments where the Library is making the appointment and paying the salary. Supervisors of GAs appointed and paid through other units (e.g., History, Computer Science, College of Law) should not make use of this form, but should follow whatever appointment procedures have been established by the responsible department or college.

A follow-up message will come from Library HR within the next few days with further details on the GA appointment process, as well as information on the population of the GA candidate database. We recognize that several offers of continued appointment have already been made by individual unit heads and GA supervisors, and Library HR will work with each of these cases to ensure that the appointment process meets the campus standard for pre-professional GAs. If you have made such an offer, please contact Donna immediately so that she can obtain the necessary information and prepare the appropriate documentation.

3.    Draft Policy on Use of Administrative Space – Walter
(see policy at http://www.library.uiuc.edu/administration/services/policies/administrative_space_use.html)

The only problem is if we list any of rooms as classrooms, it makes us vulnerable to F&S, which could decide to claim any unused hours for other departments on campus. There will be an additional policy coming out regarding instructional space (291 UGL, 225B Slavic, etc).

4.     Hours of Operation – Walter
The Budget Group, at their meeting this afternoon, will start working on the student assistant allocations. We know from what every unit head has told us that those decisions have an impact on hours of operation. As Paula noted, we also have this push from the Campus about maintaining open hours. We made a clear statement about our budgetary needs for that, both in the budget report and budget meeting. We made it clear what the gap is and the impact will be.

We are still going to have to plan. We are not likely going to have our budget allocation until well into the summer session. We need to start working on a scenario where we might have a significant cut. Rod has mentioned that we need to make up approximately $260,000 from this year. That is the $225,000 we received as one-time money for FY2008 minimum wage increase, and $35,000 expected for the FY 2009 minimum wage increase. We have to cut $260,000 just to stay even.

Paula commented that the Provost made it clear that when we pay off our loans ($300,000), she expects us to invest that money in improving faculty and AP salaries. Not in growing the size of the faculty and not in student wages. At this point we don’t know if they will restore the $260,000 or not. So we have to plan as if we have to cut that amount of money.

Lots of things could happen. We might not have to give back the $300,000 we put back this year for rescission, which we could potentially use to pay off our debt early. There are a lot of ‘ifs’ between now and July 1.

As part of that planning, given the fact that for many unites student wages are directly related to hours of service, Budget Group will be working with Paula to discuss a consistent approach across the Library to open hours, to use of staff, and to number of students. We don’t have this mapped out, but we are going to be looking at this because there is no other way for us to engage the budgeting exercise if we don’t look at this issue. We have to look at potential tiered approaches to service hours knowing that we have made public statements and have received public support for extended hours in Grainger and UGL and our desire to maintain or enhance services at the ACES Library. We will have to look at differences between a small department library that is within this facility where students may have access to facilities and central services versus a departmental library that is all on its own in a remote place, where if the building is closed the library is closed.

You should expect some proactive suggestions from Budget Group about how we might deal with the hours consistently across the units. That does not mean uniform, but consistent. The first meeting to discuss student wages is this afternoon.

We know units are holding off on setting their summer II hours based on this. Scott is trying to talk to all the different units to determine exactly how long we can wait. If there is some deadline related to announcement of summer II hours that has to do with some other campus unit that you routinely give information to, it would be helpful for Scott and the Budget Group to know that.

5.     GA Exit Interview Process Review
EC approved the GA evaluation process effective this semester. The policy requires an exit interview for GAs whose contracts conclude beginning this semester. Some units have already been doing this. Scott would like to identify the units that have made use of exit interviews and ask them to present at a forum discussing their approaches, etc.

Scott, along with Library HR will schedule a forum in the next month. The policy URL is http://www.library.uiuc.edu/administration/services/policies/GA_Evaluation.html.

6.     Updates and Announcements
The Edible Book Festival is April 1 at the University YMCA.

See the Preservation/Conservation web site for updates on the mold clean-up in RBML.

New lights have been installed in UGL and they make a huge difference.

The space for the next module of Oak Street has been marked off. It’s still slated to be finished in July.