MINUTES
Employee Assembly Meeting
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
12:15 - 1:30 p.m.
316 Day Hall

I. Call to Order

T. Grove called the meeting to order at 12:23 p.m.

Present- D. Brooks, T. Denesevich, P. Dongtoe, C. Ferguson, T. Grove, L. Croll Howell, L. Meyerhoff, B. Mc Kinney, L. Morris, G. Osborne (phone) J. Seymour, G. Stewart, C. Ferguson

Absent- K. Coldren, C. Phillips

Also attending � S. An, K. Dessources, N. Doolittle, A. O’Donnell, photographer from the Daily Sun

II. Call for Late Additions to the Agenda

There were no late additions to the agenda.

III. Business of the Day

a) Mary Opperman, guest

M. Opperman explained she would be giving a general overview of the current status of Cornell’s budgeting and finances. She mentioned to the members they might want to ask the leaders of the different projects to come and speak in order to get a more in-depth feel for specific initiatives, and how they are progressing. She also encouraged the EA to speak with Elmira Mangum, the new VP of Planning & Budget at Cornell.

M. Opperman went on to explain the administration has been chipping away at the financial deficit over the past year. Last year, they moved from a debt of 215 million dollars to a debt of about 100 million dollars. The deficit is now estimated to be around 40 million dollars. M. Opperman explained the long-term goal is to use strategic plans and initiatives that were developed over the past few years to get rid of deficits, instead of doing any further “across-the-board” cutting. Specifically, M. Opperman explained plans were made for budget cuts in IT, finance, communications, human resources and student services.

M. Opperman went on to give an update on the spans and layers tool suggested by BAIN. She explained the university has been successful in leveraging open positions. The spans and layers design is meant to shrink the size of an organization by shrinking the number of layers. Each vice president and dean has created new designs for their department. M. Opperman explained that spans and layers has led to 17 million dollars in savings, with almost 14 million of that realized by the end of this year.

M. Opperman explained that facilities and information technology are among the departments that have gone through the greatest amount of structural change.

The biggest area of savings left is in p-cards. She noted there has been a massive reduction in the number of employees with p-cards. The university plans to leverage busing power through offering discounts. M. Opperman explained that along with p-cards, energy saving is also another big resource for ongoing savings. To a much smaller extent, changes in finance (a new finance system) will also provide savings. M. Opperman explained that other changes include efficiency changes. The emphasis is not only on saving money, but rather, on doing things better.

T. Grove explained to the EA that she was present at the spans and layers forum. She asked M. Opperman to elaborate more on changes in work design. M. Opperman explained that Cornell is currently down about 900 positions across the campus. These jobs are not forecasted to come back any time soon. However, M. Opperman explained that employees could not continue to work with this excess of job tasks. Discussion on work design is meant to give employees the tools to figure out what to stop doing. People need to be working at a healthier pace. Experts in the field of Industrial and Labor Relations are currently assisting the university in this initiative. Employees are encouraged to go through diagnostics and decide how to make decisions on what they have to do, and what they want to do.

B. McKinney asked M. Opperman about the internal job application website. M. Opperman said they are thinking about having both internal and external job postings go out at the same time. Also, when they post externally, they are noticing that they are getting more internal applicants. Furthermore, M. Opperman explained the issue of diversity on campus is a pressing issue. A trade off between diversity and internal movement is at hand. The more Cornell hires internally, the less able they will be to take initiatives in diversity.

M. Opperman explained that all financing designs are up online, making all processes very transparent. M. Opperman explained that from a resources depletion standpoint, Cornell is as small as it can be. There is no future reduction plan for staffing. The strategy now is aligning work to the employees and positions that are left. Furthermore, M. Opperman reemphasized that the ultimate goal is to get employees’ workload down.

B. McKinney asked M. Opperman about the cancelling of the education department in CALS. She wondered how many employees this affected. M. Opperman explained that this change affected 9 faculty and 7–8 staff, all of whom were promised new work positions. M. Opperman explained that all programs would still continue.

M. Opperman explained that in time, people are going to get very excited about spans and layers. She feels it is a great opportunity for people to grow positions. The university has yet to explore all the different ways that it can expand jobs. This initiative has only touched parts of the campus. Many departments on campus are still very hierarchical. M. Opperman explained with the results of spans and layers, more decision-making is available for employees.

L. Meyerhoff asked M. Opperman about the issue of staff feeling undervalued; several staff

appreciation initiatives were subtracted along with the budget cut. M. Opperman explained that that is why strategy is important. With successful strategy, hopefully an emphasis on staff appreciation can return.

b) Membership expansion update

T. Grove explained that J. Seymour, due to conflict with work commitments, could no longer continue his position as chair of the EA membership expansion committee. T. Grove asked the EA that if anyone was interested in this position, to please contact her or J. Seymour. T. Grove explained that EA membership would be discussed more in-depth at the next EA meeting.

c) President’s Address planning and logistics

L. Meyerhoff announced she had put together logistical information for the President’s address event. She then passed out information on the event to all EA members. Tasks that needed to be allocated were highlighted. L. Meyerhoff explained the United Way was very enthusiastic about the idea of a raffle at the President’s address. They will be sending seven volunteers that will serve as ushers and staff the United Way table in the hall way. The volunteers will take the pledge cards. The EA then went on to delegate specific tasks for the event. B. Mc Kinney added that it is important to keep track of how many people donated to the United Way from this event in order to access how successful it was.

The EA has come up with several prizes for the raffle, including lunch for four, coffee for four with president Skorton, Men’s and Women’s Hockey tickets, and tickets to a performance at Schwartz Performing Arts Center.

L. Meyerhoff asked if the EA could arrive at 11:30 a.m. the day of the event.

d) University Benefits Committee

A. Epstein explained that he got a notice from the University Benefits committee. He explained that 1–3 volunteers are needed if anyone is interested. L. Morris and L. Croll Howell said they were interested.

IV. Report from the Chair

T. Grove had nothing to report.

V. Approval of Minutes-

a) October 20, 2010

L. Meyerhoff made a few corrections to the language of the minutes. A motion was made to approve the minutes with the discussed changes. The motion was seconded. The EA minutes from October 20, 2010 were approved.

VI. Committee Reports

a) UA Sustainability Committee — Linda Croll Howell

Due to time constraints, L. Croll Howell explained she would discuss the UA Sustainability committee at the next EA meeting. L. Croll Howell said she is now on the group that plans the Soup and Hope events. The Soup and Hope events have been moved to Thursdays next year. She will forward the specific dates to the EA. She said it would be nice if the EA could be present for one or two of the dates.

b) Staff Recognition and Awards — Tanya Grove

T. Grove explained the committee had met recently and reviewed all George Peter Award nominations and two individuals were chosen to receive the award.

VII. Old Business

There was no old business discussed.

VIII. New Business

There was no new business discussed.

1IX. Open Forum

There was no discussion in open forum.

X. Adjournment

C. Ferguson made a motion to adjourn the EA meeting. The motion was seconded. The meeting was adjourned at 1:28 p.m.