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MINUTES prepared by Lou Gross Approved at Sept 23, 2002 meeting
Members Present: Davies, Davis, Greenberg, Gross (Chair), Hedrick,
Lyons,
Mulkey, Reidy
Members Absent: Dewey, Reed, Scheurer
I. CALL TO ORDER, 3:30pm
II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA.
Agenda was approved as distributed previously, with the modification
that a presentation of additional information on the UT System budget
situation this year would be delayed to a future meeting as Sylvia
Davis
would be arriving too late to allow a full discussion at this meeting.
III. The minutes of the August 13, 2002 Committee meeting with
Provost
Crabtree were approved as per revisions distributed by email to
the
Committee, and one additional modification to to the wording of
item III.3.c. in which the final clause of the paragraph was modified.
IV. Reports.
1. A brief summary of comments made by Provost Crabtree and President
Shumaker to the Senate Executive Committee on August 19 was given
by Gross, with additional comments from Greenberg and Lyons.
2. The structure of the Senate President's Advisory Council was
described.
3. The report on Faculty Hourly Wage calculations, previously distributed
to the Committee by Gross through email, was discussed. The Committee
agreed that it would be appropriate to apprise the Senate Faculty
and Staff
Benefits Committee to ascertain whether there was any need for Senate
action regarding the effects of this policy on leaves, or other
matters
related to benefits.
4. A brief discussion of some of the details regarding budgets
at UT included
in the recent issue of Metropulse was held.
V. Old Business
1. It had been pointed out by Davies that we were in potential
violation of
the Senate Bylaws for two reasons: (1) The Chair had been elected
by the
previous year's Budget Committee and (2) There were more members
on
the Committee than specified in the Bylaws. To resolve the first
of these
issues, a motion was made and seconded to elect Gross as Chair,
and the
motion was approved. Regarding thes econd issue, concurrence was
reached that
the committee membership for this year would not be modified, but
the following
suggested modified statement of regarding the Committee in the Senate
Bylaws
were approved and shall be submitted to the Senate Bylaws Committee
(modifications in caps):
B. Budget Committee. Membership shall consist of AT LEAST eight
faculty members
appointed to two-year staggered terms. Ex-officio members shall
include the
Vice President of Budget and Finance and Vice President for Operations
for the
University. The committee shall elect the Chairperson for a one-year
term
AT THE LAST MEETING OF EACH ACADEMIC YEAR. The duties of the committee
are:
(1) to provide for campus-wide faculty input into the University
budgeting
process; (2) to encourage the use of faculty expertise in budget
matters;
(3) to inform the faculty, through the Senate, concerning budget
matters;
(4) TO FACILITATE AN ANNUAL SURVEY OF FACULTY SALARIES. Both long-range
and short-term aspects of its role will receive the committee's
attention,
including budget priorities, and THEC formulas. The primary concern
of the
committee will be policy. The committee is not expected to become
involved
in detailED and comprehensive investigations necessary as a basis
for budget
decisions.
2. Regarding the faculty salary comparisons that are reported upon
each year
by the Committee, several aspects were discussed. These included
the limitations
of having only data from the previous year, only mean (not median)
data for
other institutions, and the limited choice of comparator groups
(e.g whether
they were University Systems or individual campuses). After discussion,
the
Committee decided to request that the comparisons to be presented
this year
use UT salaries for the same year (October payroll) as the comparator
institutions, despite the fact that this would be a year out-of-date.
The report should also include a line-by-line value for the fractional
increase or decrease in UT faculty salaries from the previous to
the current
year. Thus in our report this year, we would be including salaries
from
October 2001 to compare to other institutions, but would also include
the
value October 2002 / October 2001 (as we have done previously).
The report
would also include averages calculated over all lines (to show average
faculty salary across the entire campus and average fractional change
in salary across the entire campus). Gross will contact Don Scroggins
of Institutional Research to obtain help in producing the document.
3. Regarding a goal statement for this year, the Committee approved
the
following:
The Budget Committee intends to increase information flow in two
directions:
(i) to faculty and staff from administrators in order to help make
the budgeting
process as transparent as possible and to enhance the discussion
among faculty and
staff about the significant impacts of budgetary decisions
(ii) to administrators from faculty and staff in order to provide
regular feedback
on the impact of possible administrative actions.
In particular, specific goals for this year are to:
(a) Provide input to the administration on modifications of the
budget
hearing process;
(b) Seek greater faculty input on administrative committees dealing
with
financial matters for the campus;
(c) Revise methodology used for the annual report on faculty salaries;
and
(d) Work towards streamlining budgetary approvals on campus.
4. Davis provided the Committee with overall budget summary sheets
for both the
UT System and UTK. A brief discussion was held, but it was decide
that
a more complete discussion of these documents should be made at
the next meeting.
VI. New Business:
All new business was tabled to the next meeting.
VII. GOOD OF THE ORDER
none
VIII. ADJOURNMENT 5:11PM
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