Faculty Senate Minutes
3/7/01
Present:M. Hanna, P. Hajela, B. Parsons, S. Derby, K. Anderson, S. Anderson-Gold, P. Boyce, G. Korenowski, L. Kammerer,B. Peterson
Absent: L. Caporael, K. Fortun, G. Belfort, A. Dyson, M. Embrechts, R. Leifer, J. Mitchell, P. Quinn, J. Erickson, R. Gutmann, K. Craig, C. Breneman,
Guests:C. Powell, L. Padula, H. Scarton, C. McIntyre
To Original Minutes of 3-7-2001
Agenda
Changes in Institute Prescription
Plan - Curtis Powell
Review of Administrators - Bob Parsons
Changes in Institute Prescription Plan by Curtis Powell
President Prabhat Hajela called the meeting to order. He then introduced Curtis Powell, Vice President for Human Resources who presented on the changes in the institute prescription plan. His presentation was followed by a discussion and introduction of Lou Padula, Manager of Benefits Administration
Curtis Powell highlighted some of the drug trends that increase utilization:
·Aging workforce
·Health status of workforce
·Demographics of workforce
·Extended coverage to Eligible Retirees
Chair Mike Hanna asked that if one had CDPHP coverage when they retire, can they still retain that coverage. Curtis Powell said that yes they could retain the coverage as a retiree at 50% of the premium cost.
The four-tier plan is:
Brand or generic name drugs, either formulary or non formulary. A list will be composed of all eligible drugs available on each of the four-tier plans. The employee will then be able to choose which plan they wish to enroll in. The rate of their health care benefit will be reflected by the plan they choose.
Mike Hanna stated that he believes that HMO's have already established a formulary plan. Curtis said that yes this procedure is in place. He added that there is also a list of certain drugs that will require a second opinion from your physician before authorization.
Henry Scarton asked for an explanation of why insulin was eliminated from the list of covered drugs. Curtis stated that it was a surprise to him and that he will inquire into the matter. (NOTE FROM P. HAJELA: C. Powell reported back after the meeting that insulin continues to be covered)
He stated that on the subject of communication, what he would like to see
happen is that if an issue occurs please bring it to the HR department's attention
so they can address the issue. What
he dislikes is when an issue occurs, the individual talks to fifty people,
it goes to the President’s office, and he is the last person to know. By then
the facts are out, correctly or incorrectly. If he is not aware of problems he cannot correct them.
Yes, another committee could be put together to evaluate every move that is
made pertaining to prescriptions and programs. But
will this help us in communicating to the rest of the workforce what's really
going on? The strategy he would like
to incorporate is that if changes are going to occur, he would like to bring
them back to this committee (Faculty Senate) to share up front, and to receive
feedback. Then the general faculty/staff
needs to be educated before implementing these changes. It is an opportunity for the Faculty Senate
to take charge and for everybody to get involved into looking at what the
real problems and what is needed to resolve them.
Bob Parsons asked if this will be presented to the faculty/staff
as a whole. He believes presenting the changes through the Benefits Fair is
not very productive. He feels a different kind of venue is needed to educate
faculty/staff on the changes in the health care. Curtis responded that the
Benefits Fair is a venue that takes place after all the decisions are made.
He feels that the plan needs to be looked at early in January. If changes
are going to be made, they need to be decided on in early March in order to
start educating faculty and staff on what the changes are and how they will
be affected. All current information is available on the web at http: www.rpi.edu/dept/hr/
President Hajela
asked how the revised prescription plan compares to other "market basket"
schools. Curtis said it compares very well. Overall, if co-payments are compared
across the board nationally, they range from $6.00 to $25.00 just for the
generic name drugs. Prabhat said that it is important to look at universities
that Rensselaer compares ourselves with, especially if the University wants
to attract the best quality faculty/staff to the Institute. He added that
he would like to see how Rensselaer compares to those schools. Curtis said
that nationally, Rensselaer is doing very well. In most higher education,
most health care plans are a 70-30 split, not an 82-18 split which is the
case at RPI. Creative planning will need to be done in order to keep it at
that level.
Henry Scarton said
that the compensation committee's role in the past was to act as a talking
point for ideas. The committee (made up of faculty and staff) would be able
to discuss these ideas and work out any problems, or possibly recommend a
different solution. He believes when the recent decisions were made, they
went down as far as the chairs and no lower. He thinks the prescription drugs
issue is a good example where more discussion might have been useful in helping
to avoid problems. He was wondering if it might be useful to form the compensation
committee again. Curtis inquired if he was talking about a committee that
was formed years ago. Curtis stated that the reason it was formed at that
time was that a major bend in the road was being undertaken. (switching from
Blue Cross to CDPHP) He said that "yes" if another major change
like that was being undertaken, it would make sense to pool a group of faculty
and staff together and that he was not opposed to that.
He added that everything being done or will be done will
include input from faculty and staff throughout the whole process, and will
continue to operate within that model.
Before forming a standing committee like the compensation committee, he thinks
a compensation committee needs to be defined as to what it actually means.
If a committee is developed to enhance the communication between staff and
management of an organization, that is acceptable. (when it comes down to
the National Labor Relations). However, if a committee is constituted where
you discuss wages, benefits, or working conditions, it is crossing the fence
and are developing a labor organization.
Steve Derby stated that why they are trying to do in terms
of communication is great, be the same old problems of the information not
filtering down from the Deans/Chairs to the faculty and staff are still encountered.
Curtis agreed and said that the process should be that if changes will be
made, the faculty/staff have to be educated and open forums need to be held
where all the changes would be outlined allowing for feedback. He acknowledged
that the top-down system does not work; everything that they have tried to
do in that was has failed.
Gerald Korenowski asked if anyone looked into Empire Vision inflating their costs. Lou Padula, Manager of Benefits Administration stated yes, and that they have had numerous complaints and comments.
Curtis said that before any more changes take place, he will come back to the Faculty Senate and share what is being considered for implementation to make sure that they make sense not only to the Faculty Senate but also to the faculty/staff as a whole.
Review of Administrators - Bob Parsons
Bob Parson distributed the attached evaluation.
Mike Hanna asked what results he would like to make public. Bob Parsons said that the review example he handed out could be used and then the results made public. Mike Hanna stated that faculty get reviewed in their courses which are not made public, only reviewed by the Chair. He thinks the Senate needs to be careful in what results of the evaluation are made public.
R. Noble said that
he was on the last committee that actually did this work. The mechanism in
place was that the administrator be evaluated by all those directly affected,
using a form which consisted of a combination of multiple questions and a
space for comments. That information was reviewed by a working sub-committee
(from the Faculty Council), and then forwarded to the administrator’s superior.
That person would be in charge of reporting back to the group that generated
it. He would give a presentation characterizing the report for the members
of the committee.
Mike Hanna said he is still having difficulty
with the whole process. For example, if the Provost tell
the Senate that Dean X has been reviewed and the findings can be summarized
as the following: X, Y, Z, approval rating of x percent, and this has been
discussed with Dean x. He asked if this is how the procedure would work. R.
Noble confirmed that is how the process worked. A dialogue would follow follow between the people who did the evaluation
and the person who summarized it.The
way to deal with the complexities in this process is to put people into dialogue.
The reporting administrator would have to give a presentation, followed by
a period of questions and answers. He thinks it was up to the administrator
who was given the report to use their judgment on how best to characterize
it and how to deal with sensitive issues and people's feelings - to strike
a balance point between disclosure and unnecessary harm.
Sharon Anderson-Gold, Senator, said that if
a faculty group were to evaluate the chairs, only that group would participate
in this evaluation process. She asked if reporting back to the group is the
way to close the loop on this process. Mike Hanna stated that on one hand,
the Senate has to have faith that the person above the Dean is doing something
with the information. Under the worst-case scenario, a mechanism is needed
that ensures there there was a discussion between the Provost and the Dean.
Beyond that, he is not sure anything further is needed.
R. Noble said that the point of having a dialogue between the Provost,
and the faculty of school on the performance of a Dean, has a function for
establishing communication among all the parties, allowing the faculty that
feel they've been wronged to voice their opinions.This process has a lot of
parallels on how the faculty is evaluated and how we evaluated administrators.
The report revealed their strengths, weakness, and any major issues.It would
vary from administrator to administrator.Part of the evaluation process involved
a group of individuals reporting to a committee, each person of the group
had some experience with the person’s performance.
Kurt Anderson commented that in regards to how
much information should be made public, he thinks something like what the
P&T committee uses would be appropriate in that all input comes from faculty
to the department head plus a few elected faculty to make sure all forms are
properly done. Then they are given to the Provost and the Dean and those individuals
who will review this information before any recommendations are made. Then
they go back to the faculty informing them that all concerns were addressed
without going into details. This conserves
a level of privacy but assures individuals that their concerns have been addressed.
Bob Parsons thinks the decision that has to
made now is whether it is acceptable to just put a statement into the handbook
that allows that administration to carry out the reviews or does the Senate
really want to get into the business of providing faculty input into the review
process.
Mike Hanna stated that if the Senate is planning on handling all in a committee, that
is fine. The committee could do their annual structured evaluation with reporting
back to the Senate. In terms of the
handbook , if it were handled with a committee doing an annual structured
evaluation of a Dean of a particular department chair, the problem he sees
is that there is only one school that has an active government structure,
and that is H&SS. If the Chairs were added to the handbook, where
would the feedback come back to? Prabhat asked if that would require reporting
back to the Faculty Senate.
Bob Parsons said yes and that it would follow the process that is in place
now. The Senate would have to decide on how to incorporate the reporting back
to occur. Mike said that a requirement needs to be put in to establish the
time period for the review, which is not in there for Chairs at the present
time. He thinks that at a minimum, the handbook needs to state that there
has to be a review for the Chairs at X periodic intervals.
Sharon Anderson-Gold stated that she thinks the report-back language needs to be incorporated. As written now, the Handbook language states that the report would go back only to the faculty involved. The Senate wants to make sure all faculty are involved at some level and a report is guaranteed to go back to the Faculty Senate.
Prabhat asked to get a sense of which option most present are more inclined towards: Either Option 1, which is adding a statement in the Handbook or Option 2, Reporting back to the Faculty Senate. Mike Hanna stated that at a minimum, the Chair statement needs to be added to the Handbook since there is not one presently. Prabhat agreed and added that it would be included in adding a statement to the Handbook. There were five people in favor of Option 1 and two in favor of Option 2.
Mike Hanna thinks there is a compromise position
between both options.
Meeting adjourned 4:45 p.m.