Employee Assembly Meeting
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
12:15 — 1:30 p.m.
316 Day Hall
Minutes

I. Call to Order

D. Goss called the meeting to order at 12:20 p.m.

II. Call for Late Additions to the Agenda (D. Goss)

M. Esposito asked the EA if they want to do something for Ezra Cornell’s 200th Birthday celebration.

A. Goncarovs requested the EA to vote to elect a new Parliamentarian to replace Christine Brown.

Donna asked to discuss the “Business of the Day” with Steve Golding before discussing agenda items 3–7. J. DeMarco made a motion to accept this proposal, and it was seconded by P. Mahoney. All were in favor.

VIII. Business of the Day

P. Mahoney said that the Economic Impact Analysis was an amazing summary, and especially liked to see the impact of the Geneva station.

S. Golding said that he asked Hunter Rawlings if he could do this a year or so ago.

Of the 2.5 billion that Cornell spends, 1/2 is spent in New York State, and 1/2 is spent outside of New York State. If this proportion was changed, what would be the impact within the state? This report is constructed such that county offices can see it broken down to that level, can even see what the top items purchased at Ithaca campus or Weill Medical is also. Much of this information was even news to those at Cornell.

The question arose that if Cornell is going out of state for goods, then what other universities are doing that also? There is potential to combine efforts and buying dollars with other universities and switch to in-state providers if possible.

Many state legislators in Albany only hear about the four land grant colleges and through word of mouth stories. This information is very meaningful to them as they had never before seen it in this way.

There are 56,000 alumni living in New York, and the potential impact of income, voting, and staying in New York because there are jobs available for them is enormous. There is clearly an upswing of alumni staying in New York after graduation. There is also an increase of New York residents attending Cornell.

D. Stein asked if retirees are staying in New York, and S. Golding responded that this information is hard to track once they are off Cornell’s “books.” Most are off the books, or difficult to count because they may not be here all throughout the year.

D. Stein said that he had heard that the Cornell employee work force is up 10% which runs contrary to what he thought Work Force Planning was supposed to do. M. Opperman said these jobs are technical/research related, computer/information technology driven, and compliance related.

M. Esposito asked how Cornell compares with other universities, and S. Golding answered that Cornell is being selfish, and this report was generated to feature Cornell.

S. Golding said that Cornell is the #1 research university in terms of total funding in the state, and additionally New York is second only behind California in terms of total funding. This report clearly shows that Cornell is a significant economic engine, and higher education is probably within the top five in terms of bringing money into the state and promoting economic activity around it.

D. Goss asked what other universities are generating reports like this and S. Golding replied that Ohio is in the process and Michigan has done one already. This report also includes many collaborations with other research institutions. The economic model that we used is a very good one, derived from a state model. Facts and figures are not exact, but they are very good estimations. Some figures are impossible to get because Cooperative Extension has many volunteers and it is hard to estimate what the value of volunteers would be on paper, and how these volunteers have impacted everything from farms and wineries to creating other jobs that provide paid employment for New York residents.

L. Lawrence asked what is the shelf life of a report like this. S. Golding said it is good for about 24 hours because information and expenses change from day to day.

M. Esposito asked if there would be a more specific report for just Ithaca, or just Tompkins County. S. Golding answered that President Skorton is committed to sustaining the viability of Ithaca and the county since the tax base is only 1/3 of the county, and the top 16 employers in the county are non-profits. 65 million is saved in real estate taxes due to Cornell’s tax-exempt status, but on the other side, $1.1 billion dollars is flowing into the economy in trade.

D. Stein asked about the part of the report that explains how many jobs Cornell is providing. S. Golding explained that this figure includes payroll jobs at Cornell, as well as direct purchases, contract jobs, vendor and construction jobs. So, direct and indirect employees all counted.

D. Stein asked when this report will go live. S. Golding responded that on 1/15 it will go to Community leaders, 1/24 it will go to the Board of Trustees, then to the governor and other NY dignitaries and elected officials and it will ripple down after that, and it will eventually be posted on the web.

L. Lawrence asked if there are any predictions of downturns to any of this information. S. Golden responded that there are too many variables to consider all the ways things could turn down, but the good news is that the study suggests the balance of things will work out.

Some of the people at Cornell who do this kind of study were taken on as advisors to the Appleseed Company, which is a NY based firm. They had done Harvard and Brown and many other universities. They said that no other institution they have reviewed prior to Cornell, had ever come close to Cornell in terms of breath and positive impact.

D. Goss thanked Steve Golding for coming and expressed the memberships appreciation for this report.

III. Approval of Meeting Minutes

There were no minutes available for approval this meeting.

IV. Report from the Chair (D. Goss)

No report from the Chair was given.

V. Trustee’s Report

M. Esposito reported that the Board of Trustees will be meeting in New York city the third week of January. It is very likely that they will vote to approve that one student trustee will always be an undergraduate and one will always be a graduate student. Also, there will not be any added student, faculty or employee-elected trustee seats.

VI. Committee Reports

IOC

Gary Stewart and Torrey Jacobs have volunteered to be involved with the CJC on behalf of the EA, which will be integral to the changes to the Code of Conduct at Cornell. The proposed changes made by the Krause report would affect employees somewhat, but it is a very small percentage of the total number of cases.

A. Goncarovs made the motion that the EA accept these two employees on the CJC, and B. Vangasbeck seconded. All voted in favor, and the motion passed.

Communications

P. Korolov reported that there have been lots of different ideas that have been proposed. Mary Opperman has some ideas for this also. She would like to see something similar to the Frontline Feedback sessions that were held in the past. This is very time consuming, and very expensive and we did not plan or budget for a large expense like this.

B. Vangasbeck stated that we need to have a few more meetings to determine who to invite, how to invite them because it is very difficult to invite just supervisors, also in question is how many forums to hold, the locations, the format and the budget. It is important to keep the events EA focused, and not HR focused. More information will be presented at upcoming meetings as things are worked out.

VII. Old Business

Ezra Cornell’s birthday

D. Goss stated that plans for EA involvement still need to be discussed and finalized. Hazel is working to get Cornell Catering to donate a cake.

M. Esposito reported there are many other events going on around campus on March 8, but the EA will participate in January 11th event at Olin Library.

Budget

P. Mahoney has circulated to everyone this year’s budget and next years proposed budget, and this will be an agenda item at our next meeting.

(see above for agenda item VIII)

IX. Open Forum

No time was left for this agenda item.

X. Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 1:35 p.m.