Questions for the Cabinet
UMEA Board Meeting
Tuesday January 13th, 2015
Question 1. How has the salary compression issue improved from salary increases?
Are there discussions on offering early retirement as a means for solving some of the
salary compression in the future by encouraging long-time employees to leave?
Tom Henderson: I agree - we have a problem hiring and retaining employees in
Extension. The hole in salary structure is larger at MU than in most states and salary
depression exists across the UM system, not just in Extension. That being said,
Extension hasn’t raised starting salaries in some time and the decision was made to
move the starting salary bracket from $36,500-$45,000 to $40,000-$50,000.
When looking at budget flexibility, the cabinet reached out to USDA to seek advice on
the topic of a retirement eligible process. USDA said faculty would need to be eligible for
full retirement to qualify. Tom got no traction on a one-time buyout for eligible retirees
from discussions with the UM system.
Tom also mentioned that system administration views this as a punitive decision on our
part to force people out, even though it is voluntary. Extension could offer an early
retirement option for those on civil service, but if they offered it to them, Tom does not
view it as fair to everyone else. 25% of faculty and staff at UM System and 25% of
Extension faculty are eligible for full retirement. If 70 current faculty members chose this
early buy-out and left Extension, it begs the question of what to do with the large gap in
workforce.
Question 2. The faculty appreciates any salary increase we receive. Would the cabinet
and Regional Director’s be willing to share the formula that contributed to the
specialist salary adjustment that took place at the end of 2015? This would help clarify
the way salary increases were handed out, what factors were considered, and how
much weight those factors carried throughout this process.
Tom Henderson: We tried to take all performance related notions out of the equation. It
has been 10 years since we dealt with this issue and a large number of employees were
compressed. We looked at current years of service in Extension and what experience
you brought to Extension when you came in. We adjusted that number to those who had
rank increases, adjusted for those people who earned additional degrees during that
time, and so forth.
The other key driver is the change in the federal wage law which is likely going to
increase the minimum salary for a full-time exempt employee to $50,400 annually. There
are a number of faculty below that number in Extension at that rank. The cabinet came
up with a formula, with Diane Dews assistance, and each employee received a monetary
number increase using all of the above criteria. The money to cover the equity increases
came from several areas with open field positions being one of the sources. The actual
equity increase came from within our own system and cost us over $600,000. Tom felt
this was the right time to get our faculty closer to that federal threshold of $50,400.
Everyone not included in the equity increase was given a flat rate depending on your
unique situation. This salary equation only applies to those hired in the past 10 years. If
you have over 10 years of service with Extension, this number defaulted to a flat
amount.
Question 3. It has come to my attention that not all RDs are requiring the same
procedure for requesting time off. I think the cabinet needs to address this. These are
the variations I know of:
 RDs ask to be informed in advance (request approval) if they are traveling out of
state for work. Otherwise a person just enters the info into the MU HR web site
stating what they are off for.
 RDs ask for a ‘form’ to be filled out, for anything that takes them out of the office
for more than a couple of days. This means the form needs to be sent for both out
of the area work travel (and this means even out of their region, not out of the
state) or for vacation and similar.
 I think there are variations between these.
 The cabinet may not realize that there are inconsistences here and choose to see
one set policy. So think this would be good to bring to their attention.
Bev Coberly:
At the last UMEA meeting, a question was asked about annual leave approval policies in
MU Extension. I did some research with Regional Directors about their methodologies
and found some variances, as described by UMEA. Some Regional Directors use Form
36, some use calendars, some use email requests, and some use only the University
approval system where the employee reports time off in myHR.
Upon further review, I found that the University of Missouri does not have a specific
policy as to how supervisors request annual leave information. Supervisors must
approve annual leave, but the policy doesn’t state if it is to be approved before or after
annual leave is taken, just that annual leave must be approved.
Since it is up to supervisory discretion as to when and how, no one specific methodology
will be required in MU Extension other than the mandatory approval. While it might be
advantageous to some in the organization to have one specific policy regarding annual
leave procedures, our organization requires flexibility to meet our many needs. I will ask
each Regional Director, Program Director and Continuing Education Director to review
with their faculty and staff their expectations as to how the annual leave process works
in their regions and units.
Question 4. Are extension councils covered under “Title 9”? For example, if a council
felt that an employee of the university did something to someone or to a member of the
extension council, could the council file with title 9?
Joy Millard: As long as it was in an MU Extension educational setting, yes. Visitor, guest,
teacher, student, etc. Title IX applies. If the incident occurred outside the realm of MU
Extension – say in a personal arena then, no. Joy also mentioned that there are
resources online regarding training for other non-MU employees whom we work with (i.e.
extension councils). Administration has always recommended the training for extension
council members, but never made it mandatory. We will be offering Title IX training
through Moodle as well as suggested best practices for Extension Council Members.
Additional questions proposed from UMEA:
Question 5. There has been talk of plans for changing the face of program integration.
How is this different than every day Extension work and plan of work?
Bev Coberly: As we’ve observed, we have not had program development work since
1990’s and have moved away from that. Our goal is to address complex issues and
ways to weave those pieces together, revitalizing our work into more multidisciplinary
program efforts. The cabinet met with the leadership team in the December PLC group
and some members did not understand how statistical data worked in their communities.
Bev Coberly discussed that they are tackling this project with a three-part approach:
1) 3 county pilot – See if we can come up with a plan that is better than what we’re
already doing in Extension (i.e. There are 25 different food systems teams and
they do not work together at all). There is a need to reconnect so those groups
can interface together.
2) Food Systems – Introduce a facilitating approach with all of those teams to bring
into play “What is this complex issue that we’re trying to resolve?”
3) How do we review program development progress so we don’t get into a rut and
stay there? Some of these complex issues require more. How do we take our
resources and weave them together that makes sense for our constituents using
our market driven programs? Those are the questions we hope to answer in
these pilot communities.
Bev said they have identified someone to lead this team, but the cabinet has not moved
forward on it because a position does not exist for what would be a full-time position.
The cabinet is not at the hiring stage at this time.
Question 6. UMEA has opened membership up to different levels of employees within
system to all full-time Extension employees with a 50% extension appointment (or
greater) For example: YPA’s and NPA’s. We have concern that hourly staff have been
told that they would have to take one day of annual leave to attend the UMEA annual
board meeting. Several have expressed they won’t join UMEA because of this reason.
Bev: I suggest that it might be the funding source for these individuals. Joy is going to
look into this and identify what the issue is. Sarah Denkler suggested to follow-up with Jo
Britt-Rankin and Ina to uncover this issue.
Question 7. The 2016 Extension Summit dates were announced and the dates have
fallen on the ESP national conference. Is there discussion about different dates and
possibly changing the location of the summit?
Joy: Yes, to both, although it’s not an easy fix. Lynda Zimmerman (for UMEA) created a
calendar to strategically work on this question to avoid conference overlap. In 2016 there
is a conflict with National ESP – and determined it would affect 8-10 people. The cost
analysis has been looked at extensively – it costs Extension over $200,000 to host the
annual summit every year. This includes travel as well as the cost of the Summit. Joy
invited someone to get with the conference office to look at different venues that have
the capacity to host 650 people and 12-15 rooms for breakout sessions. At this time, the
cabinet is doing the best they can for cost analysis and the number of participants we
have to work with. There has been discussion of moving the location around to UMKC,
UMSL, etc., but more issues come into play including transportation to venues, travel
expenses and parking on these alternative campuses. We always try to be aware and
ask about possible conflicts and then make the best possible decision.
Question 8. Now that Cynthia Crawford has transferred from central administration to
Department of HES, who is working with retirees?
Bev: The division of duties has been transferred to Tracy Feller and Cat Comley-Adams.
The UM system also sends out a retiree newsletter.
Question 9. Are there plans to replace Julie Middleton’s position, and if so, when?
Joy: We look at every vacancy from the lens of responsibilities, capacity and budget.
The cabinet requested a list of duties from Julie to which tasks and duties could be
parceled out to other staff or discontinued. We are looking into increasing Makele
Ndessokia’ s time in Extension from 50% Extension work and 50% Human Resources,
to a higher percent in Extension and less in Campus HR. They will probably not be able
to hire a full-time person to replace Julie at this time. Julie’s reporting duties with USDA
and Federal requirements regarding EEO are responsibilities that are required. There
are other tasks as well that will be picked up by others already employed in Extension.
Question 10. Why weren’t non-tenured campus faculty members not included in the
compression salary increases?
Tom: We blocked a certain amount of money to the Program Directors in each of those
units (Business, HES, 4-H, Agriculture, Community Development). Each group was
given a particular block of money and the cabinet does not micromanage those
resources. The cabinet is currently looking at accountability parameters for 2017 and
how other states distribute their money and processes.