MEETING MINUTES

LOCAL OPERATIONS COMMITTEE (LOC)

April 6, 1999

Glenn Wilde, Mark Brainard, Joy Fisher

AGENDA ITEM #1: Fred discussed the previous meeting minutes and the attachment #1 which had not been sent out with the meeting minutes, however everyone was reminded that Joanne had passed them out at the last meeting. Meeting minutes were approved.

AGENDA ITEMS #2: Additional maintenance needs have been an on going issue for some time, Ken White from UI spent some time at University Place and his resulting report stated the number of man hours needed to meet federal guidelines for a facility of this size. His report called for 4 to 5 FTE custodial, we have 4; and 2 to 3.5 FTE maintenance, we have 1. It was restated that as the utilization at the UP campus has increased the current maintenance man is not enough; UP is in an emergency maintenance situation, rather than a preventative maintenance. Greg Horton submitted a letter with regard to the CHE. His letter reinforced the obvious need for additional custodial and maintenance at UP. Everyone agrees the need exists for additional support, but the issue of how to pay for the additional people exists. It was suggested that raising the leases in the UP administration building would help to generate the additional funds needed to pay the salaries of the additional people. The initial estimate suggested was to raise the rent 8%. Since all leases come due in approximately 90 days, this avenue will need to be looked into as soon as possible. Glen felt that discussions should take place in Moscow immediately to address the possibility of this action and Joy had already begun working with preliminary projected figures. Jennifer asked if this was an issue that should be brought up at the Oversight Committee Meeting with the presidents and Glenn suggested that discussions should take place in Moscow first. Dennis asked if the job descriptions could be written up, and be approved by Human Resources and the Vice Provosts so that the process of hiring new people could be expedited. Glenn said that much of the process could proceed and Dennis was asked to that the lead in this. There are still a number of complaints coming in from the students and professors about the cleanliness of the CHE building. Discussions are taking place with regard to moving the custodial personnel to a night shift. This shift change would eliminate the custodial staff being taken to help with maintenance needs and would enable them to clean the building more effectively without student traffic interruptions. There is no weekend custodial and in the fall of 2000 the weekend usage will double. Everyone was reminded that the CHE is not a normal-use building and with a higher percentage of use, funds need to be found to pay for additional custodial personnel or figure out how to deal with the increasing complaints. It was suggested that the use of student workers be increased to help with custodial needs. Since ISU uses the CHE on the weekend it was felt that they should bear the cost burden of adding a weekend custodial person. It was suggested that maybe an outside contractor could be looked into for the custodial needs. Outsourcing has been considered in the past, but it is more costly and not any better quality work was received for the money paid. It was discussed that the current custodial staff be given a raise and if necessary new PDQs be written if jobs have changed. This would reassure the employees that they are considered important and that the universities have a vested interest in them. Fred was asked to compare salary increases with outsourcing and part-time irregular student help.

AGENDA ITEM #3: Policy for class cancellation due to poor weather conditions was reviewed. Glenn suggested that the policy should be expanded to cover any type of emergency that would require campus closure and that a provision should be inserted to ensure that Moscow would be notified incase of campus closure. A letter stating the procedures for closing the campus will be sent to faculty and staff at the beginning of each semester. Greg provided an A/V policy, this policy formalizes the procedures he has been working under in the past.

OTHER: Since Joanne had to leave, her agenda item has been deferred to the next meeting.

The University Place Oversite Council will be meeting in Idaho Falls along with the SBOE on April 14 and 15. Agenda items from the LOC suggested: security issues, a report from the LOC, use agreements status, an advisory board update (given by Keith Hinckely) and EITC partnership.

The next meeting time will be Tuesday, May 4, at 10:00 a.m.