Faculty Senate Salary, Benefits & Budgetary Concerns Committee
Meeting Minutes
March 7, 2014
Attendance: Steve Bale, Quan-Ping Chai, Damien Ennis, Gail Ferrell, Hugh Fraser, Jeff Olsen, Rebecca
Porter, Maria Teirumniks, Dan Williams
Absent: Kristen DeMay, Rosemary Rinaldi, Phil Smilanick, Steve Streeper
Guests: Lee Bale, Fred Egenberger, Rich Olson
Meeting called to order at 12:05 pm
1. Approval of Meeting Minutes From February 7, 2014
The minutes were approved as submitted.
2. Retirement Plan Advisory Committee (RPAC) – Michelle Kelley is the NSHE Retirement Plan
Manager and chair of the Retirement Plan Advisory Committee (RPAC). The RPAC meets
approximately four times each year. Three of those meetings are via video conference, and one
meeting is in-person in Las Vegas. The video conferences for the Reno location are generally at
the NSHE System Office and each of these three meetings lasts between 2-3 hours. The
committee generally meets in the months of May, August, November and February. The meeting
in May will be the in-person meeting in Las Vegas and will last 5-6 hours. Michelle Kelly has said
that she would like a commitment of three years from the institutional representatives serving on
the RPAC.
Chair Bale has asked Chair Marston if the Faculty Senate office, or the President’s office, will cover
the expense to fly someone to Las Vegas for that meeting. It will not be an expense that the
committee member needs to cover.
Because he is already the chair of this committee and also serving as a Department Chair, Chair
Bale asked if someone else on the committee would volunteer to serve on the RPAC. Dan Williams
expressed interest in this position, but noted that he would not be able to attend the Las Vegas
meeting this May. Chair Bale said that he would cover that meeting.
3. Merit Pay and Sabbaticals – Chair Bale spoke with Senate Chair Marston regarding this issue,
asked some of the other NSHE institutions what they are doing, researched the formal policy,
discovered exactly what is being done here at TMCC, and then presented this information to the
committee. Chair Marston indicated that he is inclined that someone on a sabbatical leave should
be eligible for Merit Pay, although he does not know yet how that would be handled.
Darin Dockstader, Faculty Senate Chair at the College of Southern Nevada, and Ted Chodock, chair
of CSN’s Merit Pay Committee, indicated that faculty on a sabbatical must be eligible for merit pay.
Item II.E.D.3 of CSN’s policy states:
“A sabbatical leave is a contract between the College and a faculty member. The faculty member
commits to satisfactory performance pursuant to the application for leave and the College allows
time and resources for the sabbatical project. The department chair and dean will judge
performance based upon the sabbatical proposal. Should a faculty member not perform
satisfactorily or should a faculty member desire not to return to the College after a sabbatical
leave, he/she will be obligated to repay CSN the amount of compensation (salary and benefits)
which he/she received while on leave.”
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Based on this policy, Chair Bale said he would be concerned with the legal ramifications if he, as a
department chair, were to judge a final sabbatical project inadequate and then possibly be sued by
the person who took the sabbatical.
Chair Bale will look at revising the signature line on the “Final Report of Sabbatical” form, which
TMCC is currently using, so that it conforms to the new Merit Policy, and submit that to the Faculty
Senate for their confirmation.
4. Faculty Raises – Chair Marston has asked that we begin discussing raises and how they might be
given out to our faculty members. There is a distinction between COLA increases, which are
confirmed by the State Legislature, and Merit Pay, which is funded from the merit pool of money,
versus funding for raises and how that might be distributed. Each of these pools of money is
separate and allocated differently. Raises could potentially be distributed equally to our entire
faculty. We are not necessarily tied to the evaluation tool for raises, whereas Merit Pay is tied to
the evaluation tool.
Fred Egenberger noted that, if we are going to ask for funding for raises, we need to turn our
budget request in to the NSHE System office within the next three months. Otherwise, we will
need to wait for two years.
Although there may not be funding available for raises, it was noted that we should at least ask
since there have been no raises or pay increases for the past seven years. Additionally, we cannot
expect to hire new people and also leave our current faculty at their current salary for the duration
of their career. At some point, we are going to need to offer some system of regular pay
increases.
It was noted that we would need to have some kind of measurement to qualify people to receive a
raise in pay. It would be wonderful to have an evaluation tool that is geared completely toward
ranking faculty based on excellence in teaching.
It was suggested that we keep the process as simple as possible. We could simply provide a raise
to anyone who receives a “Commendable” or higher on their evaluation. Additionally, a raise might
also be based simply on the class syllabus and a classroom observation by the Department Chair.
For departments that have numerous faculty, it was suggested that a co-Chair or a senior faculty
member assist with the classroom evaluations.
Motion: That any faculty member who receives a “Commendable” or higher on their annual
evaluation will be eligible for a pay raise.
Passed; Maria Teirumniks / Hugh Fraser
In the next month, Chair Bale will be meeting with Dr. Solemsaas and President Sheehan to see if
they have an appetite for us to develop a budget request to offer raises to our faculty members.
5. Summer School Payment to Faculty – Senate Chair-Elect John Adlish is looking into this issue
and the Executive Committee asked Chair Bale to bring this issue before the committee. Concern
has been expressed over the following items:
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•
•
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Inequities in pay
The payment formula – NSHE Code
Census
Notices going out earlier from the VPFA’s office
Payment Formula – Currently, the NSHE Code states that:
“Faculty who teach in Summer school and are on a “B” contract during the academic year will be
paid 1.875 percent of their base contract amount from the TMCC salary scale per credit hour.”
(chapter 3, page 19)
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It was pointed out that Summer school is a separate entity apart from regular Fall and Spring
semesters. Summer school stands alone and is currently producing a large profit for the college,
earning over $250,000 each summer.
Inequities – The problem with inequities is that different courses have different maximums on how
many students may sit in the class. This is dictated by classroom size, labs or computers in the
classrooms. The argument is that we are currently allowing the college to gain a profit off the
backs of our faculty’s pay. It was suggested that the policy should be revised to make an
exception for those classes that are restricted by lab/computer size so that our faculty are not
penalized because of class size.
Census – This is the count of how many students are in a class. The census is currently being
conducted a week before classes begin, which means more students frequently sign up for the
course right before it begins. Hence, a course might fill all seats within the week before the class
begins, but the faculty member will be paid less money because the census has been taken too
early. It was suggested that census day should be set on the first day of the class beginning.
Notice Dates – This is the date that faculty are told that they have a class and what they will be
paid. This notice date is connected to the census day and should be given one week before class
starts.
Currently, the consultant for our equity pay study has determined that we will need approximately
$700,000 to bring our faculty current. The college has identified approximately $500,000 in funds
to take care of this. Chair Marston is planning to suggest to President Sheehan that the profit
earned from summer school should be used in a way that we are able to make up the remaining
$200,000 needed for the faculty equity payment plan.
The Faculty Senate Executive Committee has asked that the committee develop a revised policy for
summer school payment. Based on today’s discussion, Chair Bale will draft a policy to present to
the committee at their next meeting on April 4th. The committee may then present this revised
policy to the Faculty Senate for their vote, after which the motion would go to Dr. Solemsaas and
President Sheehan for them to approve.
6. Bylaw Change to the Charge of the Committee
At our last meeting, the committee discussed the committee’s charge and whether there are
elements that should perhaps be modified.
Chair Bale advised the committee that there have been discussions within the Senate and the
Executive Committee regarding the Codes and Bylaws Committee and whether that committee
should continue as a standing committee of the Senate. Brian Wells has resigned as the chair of
the committee and Bridgett Blaque has stepped forward to serve as an interim Chair for the
remainder of the year.
One suggestion has been that the Faculty Senate Chair-Elect should handle issues regarding the
NSHE Code and Bylaws. It is not yet known what the Senate will want to do about this committee,
whether the committee will continue to meet, or if it might possibly be removed from the Senate
Bylaws as a standing committee.
Until some of these questions are clarified, Chair Bale suggested that we might end up being
assigned additional duties if the Codes and Bylaws Committee is disbanded. We should know more
about this situation in the next few weeks. Because of this possible change, Chair Bale suggested
that we hold off on reviewing the charge of the committee.
Old Business: None
New Business: None
Next Meeting: Friday, April 4th, 12-2 pm, SIER 105
The meeting adjourned at 1:43 pm
Page 3 of 3; Faculty Senate Salary, Benefits & Budgetary Concerns Committee Meeting Minutes
TMCC is an EEO/AA institution. See http://eeo.tmcc.edu for more information.
3/7/14