Civil Service Employees Council
MINUTES
Thursday, March 6, 2014, at 1:15pm
Capitol Room– Macomb Campus
I. Roll Call – Heather McMeekan, Holly Fecht, Wendi Matson, Alison Shook, Carla
Farniok, Alisha Barnett, Jessica Lambert, Stacy Dorethy, Connie Upton, Linda Wade,
Kim Sedgwick, Tammy Fretueg, Pam Bowman
Absent – Julie DeWees, Peter Skrypkun, Charlene Hammond, Bill Rupert, Tammy
Klinedinst, Karen Trusley, Bill Rupert
II. Dr. Joe Rives – Dr. Joe Rives shares a presentation with the Council – a very brief
synopsis of the presentation follows. During the presentation, he shares that the
University is starting a four-year process to increase graduation and retention rates. WIU
is participating in a newly developed Academy that was established to support student
success and fulfill accreditation requirements. A total of 19 schools have been accepted
into the Academy with WIU being one of them; the goal was to gather members from
diverse background (public, private, large, small, urban, rural, etc.). The Academy
evaluates schools and recommends improvements using a predictive analytic framework
focusing on improving retention and graduation. Joe states that WIU is a good
university, but he knows we can do better. WIU was accepted into the Academy after
undertaking an application process from August through December of 2013. In January,
WIU participated in a data mentor program, as well as attended an information planning
workshop last December. At WIU, there are three committees being established to look
at three different student groups – Macomb students, Quad Cities students, and offcampus students (Online and traditional off-campus students). In sharing the
presentation, Joe’s goal is to find Civil Service volunteers to join this committee. Connie
Upton volunteers for the Macomb and off-campus committees, and Stacy Dorethy
volunteers for off-campus committee. Joe encourages everyone to talk to their peers and
send him an e-mail if they know anyone interested.
III. Minutes (last meeting)
a. Motion to approve: Connie Upton
b. Approved by: Alisha Barnett
IV. Treasurer’s Report (Stacy Dorethy) – The Treasurer’s report is detailed below. Stacy
indicates the plaques were posted to the wrong account in error (they will be moved from
882046 to 900770). In addition, the parking pass charges may be modified slightly for
next month.
a. Motion to approve: Carla Farniok
b. Approved by: Allison Shook
V. Director of Human Resources (Pam Bowman) – The Service Recognition Reception is
April 29th, and employees with 10 or more years of service will be recognized. Western Illinois University continues to acknowledge Civil Service and Administrative employees for their service to their communities and for their outstanding contributions to the University. As a result, nominations are being accepted for the annual employee awards recognizing community service and distinguished service to the University. Award recipients will be presented with their awards and recognized at the Employee Service Recognition Reception on Tuesday, April 29, 2014. One of the awards will be given specifically for a Civil Service Employee (Pam
encourages nominations, including self-nominations). The Civil Service Employees
Dependent Scholarship information will be available in the near future as well. The
System Service Audit was completed, and they finished up a day earlier than planned. It
takes four to six months to get the final report.
VI. Vice President for Administrative Services Report (Julie DeWees) – absent
VII. Group Concerns – none
VIII. President’s Report (Wendi Mattson) – Carla, Wendi, and Karen met with SUCSS. They
just ask how things are going and it’s a pretty short meeting.
IX. Civil Service Employee of the Month (Alisha Barnett) – Karen Trusley was the
employee of the month for March. Alisha encourages council members to attend
presentations when possible to show support for recipients.
X. Employee Advisory Committee Representative (Peter Skrypkun)- no report
XI. WIU Quad Cities Campus Report (Alison Shook) – The QC campus is still trying to
get ready for the move; they are working on ordering equipment and furniture. Wendi
asks about good times for everyone to meet in the Quad Cities – the committee shares
various ideas and April seems to be the best month for everyone. The Counsel will
essentially be there most of the day. We will plan on leaving at 8 am, take a tour of the
campus, do our regular monthly meeting, and return to the Macomb campus.
XII. Representative Reports to Council
a. Affirmative Action Internship Committee (Holly Fecht) –The committee is
currently reviewing applications and will be meeting to select interns in the near
future.
b. University Diversity Council (Karen Trusley) – absent
c. Website and IT Issues (Jessica Lambert) – Everything is updated with the
exception of last month’s meeting and agenda that were sent today. The luncheon
information has been added to the Website. Heather added that they are currently
working on going to a new website and has asked that people look at websites in
their areas and ensure they are needed and up-to-date. A lot of websites will have
to be hand-coded again if they are not able to go to the template system.
d. Training and Development (Carla Farniok) –
Microsoft Excel 2010 -­‐ Formulas & Functions Wednesday, March 19, 2014 Time: 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM Location: Malpass Library 2nd floor computer classroom Learn to construct formulas and functions to increase accuracy and efficiency Guided Tour of the Heating Plant & Heating Plant Annex Tuesday, March 11, 9-­‐10:30 AM Meet at south entrance to Heating Plant (see sign on door) Human Resources have begun posting photos/classification/department information of all new employees (with their approval) on the HR Facebook Page. This might help the Council Mentors or even building reps. to identify them, where they are located, etc. and hopefully reach out to them and make them feel welcome, etc. Members are encouraged to "like" the page and follow it as I try to post informative and helpful items regularly. The Employee Spotlight is posted each week on it also. Employee Development also has a separate Facebook Page where we post employee/supervisor training opportunities as well. HR FB page: https://www.facebook.com/WiuHumanResources?ref=hl Emp Dev FB page: https://www.facebook.com/wiu.training.development?ref=hl Sheila has begun to work on the upcoming Summer Socials that were so popular last summer. We will host one in the QC during the summer months also. Holly asks if we can piggyback off the idea of putting the new Civil Service Employees on our Facebook page; Carla will follow up with Sheila. Heather said there is a seminar coming up on something like “how to have fun with your marriage” and “how to mentor other people.” They are open to faculty, staff, and the public – they are put on by the Psychology Department. Carla said she will need a volunteer for a person to take over this role also, since she is leaving. Tammy Fretueg volunteers to take on this role. XIII. Committee Reports
a. Policy & Appeals (Bill Rupert) – Bill was absent, but sent information to Wendi
to indicate the appeal currently in process. Heather asks what the appeal was
about. Holly said that she recalls Bill said it had something to do with job duty
allocation to a certain classification.
b. Awards and Selection (Alison Shook) – The goal is to do application interviews
in April. Alison said she feels the dependent (scholarship?) helps the employee,
and said they may consider setting up one scholarship for a more non-traditional
dependent. At this time, it is too short of a time frame to make a change occur
without having time to think of all the ramifications of a potential change.
c. Constitution/Election (Linda Wade) – Linda has reminded the group that there
will be four (Carla, Kim, Bill, and Linda) vacancies on the Council. Linda has
seen no applicants at this time. It may be that there is a time commitment
concern from interested parties considering the extra duties people have taken on
with hiring restrictions due to budget constraints across campus. Wendi says we
will do a TeleStars. Alison asked about the possibility of adding two people from
the Quad Cities; Linda said this can be done but the Constitution will need
changed to say “at least one from the Quad Cities.”
Linda provides the following to the group after the meeting via e-mail:
We are looking at changing article 4. I have included A3 for context. I suggest the wording below in case anyone ever asked why all 1s are on the council. I added the last part for future members if the Council becomes composed of members from QC and 8 members from Macomb-­‐ (8 members have to be physically present at the meeting location for a quorum to be met). How I arrive at this number? We have 16 voting members. Half of 16 is 8 members. You always need more than half to make a quorum...so that would be 9. Concerns or questions are welcome-­‐just remember to reply only to me and not the entire group. If anyone has a better wording suggestion, please let me know before the April 3 meeting. Article III – Membership Groups Section 1 Representation on the Civil Service Employees Council shall be based upon employee groups. Section 2 There shall be six recognized groups, namely: (1) administrative and professional; (2) clerical; (3) service and technical; (4) union and prevailing; (5) secretarial; (6) Western Illinois University Quad Cities Campus employees. Article IV – Membership and Qualifications Section 1 Membership of the Council shall be composed of three persons elected from each of the recognized employee groups, with the exception of group (6) being composed of one elected member. Section 2 ________________________________Recommended word change________________________ Article IV – Membership and Qualifications Section 1 Membership of the Council shall be composed of persons elected from each of the recognized employee groups, with group (6) having at least one elected member. Groups 1-­‐5 shall have 3 members representing their group. When possible all groups shall be represented on the council by members from their group. If interest is lacking from group members someone may be appointed/elected to represent those groups who did not show interest in being on the council. The council must always consider with membership the potential of members to be in person at the CSEC monthly meeting. The Civil Service Employees Council must have a quorum present at the physical meeting location to be in compliance with the Open Meetings Act to conduct voting and business.
d. Education (Alisha Barnett) – Alisha said we need prizes for the next luncheon,
and she has brought sign-up sheets for everyone. She also has a letter for
everyone to share.
e. Fundraising (Wendi Mattson/Karen Trusley) –
i. Luncheon- Karen is absent, but Connie said Pepsi is donating 10 cases of
soda (Mt. Dew, Pepsi, water). In addition, a contract has been signed with
Sodexo for the meal at a cost of $9 per plate, but we will be responsible
for refilling the food. Decorations are coming together slowly, but they
are still coming in. In addition, there are still ideas under consideration for
entertainment – ideas under discussion include “kiss the pig” or a dunk
tank. The planning committee is also considering a cotton candy machine.
The committee does know that they are also doing a “bags” game for sure
– Kappa Phi is likely going to be the group to paint the game board which
is currently a blank slate. There are also discussions of a photo booth, but
there is a $50 fee for using the booth. Holly said she is working on the
lottery raffle – it will be an origami-type vase with lottery tickets
incorporated.
f. Mentoring (Kim Sedgwick) – Carla Sanders will be working at WIUM in
Galesburg as a Radio Producer, Peggy Lutz will be an Office Support Specialist
in the Registrar’s Office, and Kelly Severs will be a Clerk in CAIT. Kim is
looking for a volunteer to take this over, and Tammy Fretueg offers to do this.
g. Social Events & Development (Wendi Mattson & Stacy Dorethy) – No report
h. Open Meetings Act Requirements (Linda Wade) – No report
i. Provost Advisory Council Report (Karen Trusley)- absent
XIV. Old Business –
a. At the afternoon President’s forum held last month, Heather asked the President if
he would support 12 days of non-cumulative sick leave for Civil Service
Employees as has been done for other groups on campus. Heather asks if anyone
has heard back from Julie relating to this. Wendi feels we should follow up with
Julie to see where we are before taking any additional action on this.
After the meeting, Wendi contacted Julie DeWees who indicated that a
report will be presented to the Board of Trustees at the June meeting.
b. Heather thinks the following information would be useful to share with Civil
Service employees: how many audit requests there are each year, how many are
approved, how many are rejected, how many are sent to appeal, and what the
results are on appeal.
c. Heather said she has a concern about employees who are concerned about layoff
and a disparity between if we are really in trouble and are not getting the
guaranteed raises, since administrative (employees?) took raises. Wendi states
that those employees are not getting any bigger raise than us (their Unions have
agreed to decrease their raises from the original agreed upon amount).
d. Connie asks about parking fines across campus – she got a $5 fine and was
wondering if that was the rate across campus. Fines are much higher for students
who don’t have a permit when parking. XV. New Business– Heather asks if we can’t get Job Descriptions on the Websites, if we
could get a list of Job Descriptions in a secure Website so we can see them. Connie said
the Specification links were not previously showing on the WIU Website (SUCSS
changed their format which broke the links). So, Connie indicates that what Heather is
talking about is normally available, but right now the links are broken from our Website.
Heather adds that it would still be useful to see specific employee’s job descriptions on
the Website.
XVI. Announcements – Wendi shares a flyer on the “Council of Councils,” and she
encourages the group to start thinking about attendance.
XVII. Meeting Adjournment –
a. Motion to adjourn: Carla Farniok
b. Seconded by: Tammy Fretueg
XVIII. Next Meeting will be Thursday, April 3, 2014, in the Quad Cities.