Meet and confer

Meet and Confer

MNSCU

March 30, 2012

Introductions were made.

Attending for MAPE: Greg Mellas, Terry Nelson, Kathy Grady, Russell Raczkowski, Michael Terhune, and Jerry Jeffries.

Attending for MnSCU: Steven Rosenstone, Chris Dale, Doug Knowlton, Jeff Wade, Melissa Fahning.

Implementation of the ASA Consultation Structure

Chair Greg Mellas opened the discussion of ASA Implementation by stating that MAPE has engaged membership across the system and recruited 16 representatives for the various councils from various institutions with a goal of getting a good representative cross section.

Vice-Chancellor of Academic and Student affairs, Doug Knowlton acknowledged that setting up of the structure of the ASA consultation took more time than had been hoped but now that the structure is set meetings had started. He also stated that new structure grew out of a concern that previous practice resulted in a hard-to-manage system of multiple groups and that it is hoped that new structure will be more coherent.

Chair Mellas expressed concern that one of the challenges will be to facilitate effective communication between the various council, the coordination commission, and the various constituent groups.

Vice-Chancellor Knowlton acknowledged that communication would indeed be crucial. He said that a newsletter covering the ASA consultation process would be initiated in late April, 2012.

There was general agreement that the progress made in including MAPE representatives in the ASA consultation process is a positive development both for MAPE represented employees and for the system.

Classified vs. Unclassified Assignments

A lengthy discussion ensured after Chair Mellas framed the topic of Classified vs. Unclassified assignments by asking if we are seeing a trend from classified to unclassified positions. He illustrated this trend by noting that positions that formerly would have been Financial Aid Officers, a classified position, are now being posted as unclassified Academic Professional positions.

Jeff Wade responded that those decisions are made only when it is determined that those positions are properly considered as unclassified positions. He added that the individual colleges are sometimes saying they that want to expand the responsibilities of employees to included non-financial aid officer functions and possibly promote them—the Academic Professional series allows for that but the Financial Aid Officer classification, which is not a series, does not.

Further discussion regarding Financial Aid Officer/Academic Professional positions ensued.

Chris Dale pointed out that ultimately the system office gets to make the determination of how a position is posted.

Chair Mellas expressed a desire on behalf of MAPE to see the rationales of how those decisions are made.

Mr. Dale responded that those decisions are made on a case by case basis using the specification of the job title. Mr. Wade added that his people would say that they are basing their decisions on appropriate readings of state statute.

Russell Raczkowski expressed concern that by using a generic job title like Academic Professional that we might be losing sight of specialized knowledge that is captured in a specific classified job title—by making everyone by title a generalist, we diminish the value of specialization.

Mr. Dale responded that unclassified positions are actually about non-transferrable specialized knowledge that does not fit a classification easily and that the specialized knowledge is captured in the individual position descriptions.

Chair Mellas stated that MAPE would like to explore the possibility of class options like those used for ITS series.

Mr. Wade said that he would follow up with those in the system office that handle staffing.

Legislative Update

Melissa Fahning (MAPE represented, but speaking on behalf of MnSCU) provided an update on MnSCU related legislative activity and discussion ensued—topics included the higher education omnibus bill, MAPE and other labor contracts, and bonding bills.

Employee and Achievement Awards Policy fromMinnesota Management and Budget (MMB)
 
Discussion of the Employee Achievement Awards, which have recently been reinstated by MMB revealed that MnSCU is in the process of coming up with broad guidelines and a template that will preserve individual campuses’ flexibility to implement specific to their needs.  Campuses will need to budget for Achievement Awards. Chancellor Rosenstone expressed a desire that the guidelines allow not just for individual awards but also for recognition for teams or groups.
 
The guidelines will be for FY 13. MnSCU system office has already been in contact with individual campuses around this issue.

Follow-up Discussion on September Information Request

In September 2011 MAPE made an information request regarding “Dual Appointments” or “Concurrent Appointments” i.e. MnSCU employees who hold more than one assignment.

The intent of the request was to capture data for all concurrent appointments in the system. The response received from MnSCU provided only data on MAPE employees who have concurrent appointments.

Subsequent communication from MAPE asking for the full data requested had elicited a response that the additional data would be provided only if MAPE would pay for the additional work—roughly 40 hours at a total cost of $1500.

After Chair Mellas summarized the issue, Mr. Dale apologized for the limited response but said that MnSCU responded to the request as they understood it. He added that the response was nonetheless appropriate since MnSCU would have limited the response to data affecting MAPE employees only without payment. Mr. Dale further stated that the data that was provided was done free of charge since it spoke to the “core function” of the union.

Chair Mellas disputed the cost, pointing out that MAPE members had reported that the extra effort needed to capture all the data requested by MAPE would entail only writing the correct query.

Mr. Wade responded that each line of the data must be manually reviewed to accurately capture figures for concurrent positions.

Chair Mellas suggested that MAPE-represented IT professionals could help if they were given access, as is allowed under state statute.

The discussion continued regarding concurrent appointments.

Chair Mellas pointed out that concurrent appointment occurs across the system as is indicated by the data provided on MAPE employees with concurrent appointments but that some campuses are moving to ban concurrent appoints. This is unfortunate, he said, since it both limits the careers of MnSCU employees and denies the employer access to a talented pool of employees for needed functions.

The MnSCU response was two-fold: that campuses can incur substantial costs due to the overtime provisions of Fair Labor Standards Act and MnSCU does not limit a campus’ attempts to contain costs.

Mr. Dale said that managing the situation is difficult since campuses’ Human Resource offices struggle to remain updated on their employees are doing. Mr.Wade reiterated the difficulty of tracking concurrent appointments and the potentially huge costs to campuses.

Chancellor Rosenstone suggested that the MnSCU is a decentralized system and that imposing a policy that campuses must allow for concurrent appointments would fundamentally violate the nature of the system.

Tuition Waiver

Tuition Waiver has a long history of contention between MAPE and MnSCU both in Meet and Confer and Supplemental Negotiations. In a previous conversation, Chancellor Rosenstone and Chair Mellas had agreed to revisit the topic at this meeting.

Chair Mellas led off by stating that the disparities between the various employees based on their representation created an unfair hierarchy. He suggested that a tuition waiver benefit consistent and applicable to all eligible employees in the system in lieu of a negotiated benefit might be preferable. He noted that for non-represented administrators a tuition waiver benefit is provided regardless on their lack of bargaining unit status.

The resulting discussion was typically contentious.

Chancellor Rosenstone was firm in his position that this was a contractual relationship resulting from a collective bargaining system and that it could not be addressed in any other way.

Mr. Dale pointed out that outside of MnSCU, other MAPE employees do not receive this benefit.

Mr. Raczkowski stated that we should look at tuition waiver as a staff development issue with ramifications for the system beyond contractual language and that the benefit of tuition waiver is not limited to the employee.

Jeff Wade contended that it is not productive or appropriate to discuss this negotiated benefit in the venue of Meet and Confer.

(Respectfully submitted by Russell Raczkowski on behalf of MAPE.)
 

MAPE IT CONSOLIDATION ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING

Monday, April 16, 2012

Our fourth MAPE IT Advisory Committee meeting was held and the following are the minutes from that meeting:

AGENDA:

1.      DATA REVIEW:  MAPE received the lists established by agencies and turned in to OET reflecting who is INCLUDED in this consolidation. Each committee member received the list and has been asked to reach out to local leadership to communicate the data. The following reflects agency numbers of individual employees to be included:

• OET – 16 (not including OET itself – everyone is in (354)
• DNR – 93
• HEALTH – 146
• DPS – 162
• DHS – 596
• REVENUE – 117
• EDUCATION – 44
• COMMERCE – 20
• DEED – 93
• DOT – 214
• MMB – 64
• DOC – 65
• ADMIN – 9
• DOLI – 23
• BD OF WATER/SOIL – 4
• IRON RANGE RESOURCE BD – 3
• BD of ANIMAL HEALTH – 4
• MDA – 21
• COMMERCE – 15
• PCA – 67
• ZOO – 4
• MDVA – 8
• OHE – 5
• DHR – 1
• ARTS BD – 2
• OMHDD – 1
• PERPICH CENTER – 2
• RACING COMMISSION – 1

2. AGENCY REVIEWS: Committee members shared updates from their agencies regarding discussions with management and members. Committee members have done a GREAT job in touching base with their CIOs!  Please see your contact person (on the MAPE website) with questions or updates on agency discussions.      

3. LEGISLATIVE TASK FORCE UPDATE – Richard Kolodziejski

• Now called Technology Advisory Committee (Governor Appointees), OET is re-branding itself – already leaking through social media. Legally will still be OET but will have a new name (can’t change name legislatively at this time – no time to do so). Have already seen reduction study to consolidate other groups – bill not going anywhere. Richard believes there is a great disconnect between the discussion of the MAPE committee and what he is hearing at the legislative level and he will be attending future IT Advisory Committee meetings. There is a concern that there may be a disconnect between some agencies and CIO’s. Richard believes that agencies will be making changes to improve those connections. Committee will be meeting monthly. 

4. Sue Wickham and Colleen Schmitz (OET) and Jim Jorstad (MMB) joined us for Q & A.

Q:  On our data lists, there is a column with “remove” on the heading – will these folks be reclassified and have input?
A:  Agency HR’s should be talking with people and getting feedback.

Q:  For DOT:  Non-IT classifications on other lists but not on DOT?  Is this process still on-going?
A:  I believe DOT is done reviewing the classifications but they may not have notified individuals.

Sue:  we ask agencies NOT to do anymore reallocations at this time. But for people whether they are in or out … the agencies are taking care of that. The 3/16 deadline marked which agency would go first to be complete within this transition. It’s the program manager that looks at whether they are ready to go by 7/1. We are now looking at a phased approach. This data shows how far along the agency is.

Q:  why would the data not be consistent between agency and OET?
A:  No idea – followup should be with Agency HR. 

Q:  Where do we go for corrections to the OET list?
A:  Sue was not sure … will follow up with committee.

Q:  Non-IT on lists from OET … they will all move into OET correct?
A:  Yes.

Q:  Everyone with IT classification is this OET list will definitely move with non-IT and AFSCME?
A:  Yes.

Q:  Reallocations were stopped for how long?
A:  Until we can get a handle on things … at least until July.

Q:  Prior to shutdown and consolidation we had people scheduled for reallocations…do they have to wait?
A:  What I (Sue) am concerned about is that we have everyone as similar as possible.  We don’t want to have to move people up and down more than we have to.

Q:  If audits were done before shutdown and the audits were completed, will there be back pay?
A:  It will follow the administrative procedures; benchmark for back pay would be 15 days after documentation is put in. 

Q:  I believe you said if the person is doing IT work, but did not get included under OET auspices, they would not do IT work forward.
A:  Intent of consolidation is that IT work would be done under OET.

Q:  What about the 50 percent IT work benchmark for inclusion?
A:  I don’t think it’s much of an issue…most IT is doing that work more than 50%.  It’s going to be a decision by the individual managers.  They could continue with a minimal amount of IT work.

Q:  Who defines what IT work is?
A:  OET does – the only things non-consolidation people would be doing are computer work easily done by people in general. 

Q:  We have people in ITS positions that are not going to OET.  How long will they hold these IT positions?
A:  Agencies will make changes as quickly as they can.  OET put out communications that they CANNOT have IT after this is finalized.

Q: If they are in an IT classification why would they not be?
A: CIO decisions …

Q:  How do the management analysts fit in?
A:  Difference between support work and IT work in and of itself. Management analysts included will keep their classification.

Q:  What is the specific difference between ITS and management analyst?
A:  MA doesn’t have to have technical experience.

Q:  Why are we making vacant MA4 Project Management NOT included – How is that different from IT4 Project Management?
A:  We don’t look at are they accurately classified…that’s to be addressed between HR and CIO.

Q:  How will HR issues be resolved, for instance, flex time, working at home etc.
A:  We will probably be pretty consistent … can’t guarantee anyone anything. It isn’t our intention to change people’s practices.

Q:  Will local HR retain any decisions, policies?
A:  Global policies will be phased in. We will be close to state policies.

Q:  The list that we have, is everyone on their list … is their supervisor on the list?
A:  Not necessarily – just IT supervisors.

Q:  Will we have IT reporting to non-IT supervisors?
A:  All OET employees will be getting OET supervisors at some point.

Q:  Policy for annual reviews … is one necessary before moving to OET?
A:  One of the things Colleen will be working with OET management on. We will be focusing on this but will be done on anniversary, not upon moving into OET.

Q:  If agency says IT will not work from home or flex, will that change to across the board policy?
A:  Yes, it will be OET wide by policy.

Q:  For employees at OET “classic” – what will this do to our reporting structure?
A:  One thing that will change is Chief Operations Office may make some changes in the internal structure when they are hired. I can’t believe anything will change significantly at this time but it will be an ongoing process.

Q:  What percentage when it comes to reallocations will change?
A:  I would guess one-third may change … depends on where you are at in the hierarchy. When you look at the list of classifications for instance there are a lot of 5s, which there should probably not be that many. Probably more of the 1s and 2s going up, and 5s going down.

Q:  When will you begin to work on pds and class option changes?
A:  They have already started on that. Vonnie Mulcahy (HR director at DEED – retired) is working on that. Guessing it will go out to July. She is looking at broad picture … how do we organize by function area … how will this work in this big an organization. CIOs came up with function areas.

Q:  As far as reporting from CIOs is there a drop dead date?
A:  It is taking longer than expected for some agencies. There will be drop dead date but we haven’t established it.

Q:  Long term question: Are people going to have the opportunity to look at the new pd and see if they fit etc.?
A:  I think what will happen, instead of looking at individual pds … a group will be looked at and how we are redesigning the jobs. I think we will be doing things really differently. When you have positions agency by agency and they are doing variety of things that are not necessarily consistent across the agencies. We can have people that specialize in their type and level. Whatever we do people will have a chance to react.

Q:  On the lists, some of our supervisors are included in the move over … will supervisors be cut?
A:  If they are on the list they are included but we will determine if we are too heavy on supervisory numbers.

Q:  What is the ratio or employees to supervisors … and what about team leaders?
A:  No policy on team leaders – I would like to have supervisors that supervise low number of people but they do actual supervisory work. No rule of thumb for ratio. If you are supervising employees that are all doing the same thing it’s easier to have more people to supervise.

Q:  Talking about properly placing individuals …. How will you work that with the agencies that have a number of employees that find out they shouldn’t be doing the same work for OET than they’ve been doing for the agency?  They understand the agency background and how the agency works.
A:  One of the things we are really concerned with is that their business relationship will change.  I see that in some areas more than others.  Hopefully this will happen over time. 

Q:  Is there a date for the statewide OET workplace environment survey?
A:  SOON.

MAPE Meet & Confer – NHCC
3/22/2012 Present: Kathy Grady, Carol Karnitz, Sheila Pokorny (MAPE Business Agent), John O’Brien, Sue Appelquist  Guest: Kris Boike

Shared Governance Update
    *    Duty Day February 7th Universal design brought concerns from Faculty about contractual language regarding extra work load that make course content accessible needs to be addressed.
    *    LDA (last day of attendance) which refers to financial aid funds.  Need to have clarity to faculty on what they need to do and possibly training on a duty day.

Technology Master Plan
    *    Kris Boike shared the strategic plan that goes out several years.  This strategic plan aligns with the campus’s mission, vision, and goals. The plan is being communicated to the campus for input.  The committee called “Information Technology Advisory Committee” includes members from all campus unions.  But, we need to designate a MAPE representative to report back to campus MAPE meetings.

Board of Trustee and Legislative Session
    *    NHCC Bio Science building bonding was not included in the House budget.  NHCC hopes that the Senate will put it back in.

PACE Survey
    *    Revisited transparency from management.  John stated be begins his Executive team meetings by asking his managers what they have done since the last meeting to contribute to transparency.  He will continue to emphasize that all managers and supervisor’s include transparency in processes.  We made them aware of some situations where transparency has occurred in some departments but not others.  If not all supervisors are going to embrace a similar process, mistrust will continue to exists between staff and management.
    *    Reminder of the open meeting on the PACE survey to reflect on what has been done and discuss opportunities for improvement.  Wednesday, March 28, from 2:00-3:00 in ES40 sponsored by Human Resources and the Trust and Respect Committee.

Continuous Improvement Council
    *    Concerns about this committee which includes Strategic Planning and AQIP being stalled out due to leadership changings.  John will bring this up on Monday’s Executive team meeting.

Staff Evaluation Committee
    *    Sue gave us an updated copy of the Staff Evaluation form and noted that some changes were included after the 4 brown bag sessions.  She will need the final approval from the Executive team to implement this process.  She will have training for supervisors and provide more brown bag session to help explain the optional 360 evaluations.

Summer Hours
    *    Sue told us that we are going to go ahead with the summer hours closing at 12 noon on Fridays for a nine week period (May 30th through July 31st).  They will be exploring an opportunity for energy savings during off hours.

MAPE IT Advisory Committee 3/8/12 

This is a recap of topics discussed during a meeting of the MAPE IT Consolidation Advisory Committee held on March 8.  Please see your agency representative listed on the website for more information or if you have questions/concerns: www.mape.org/mape/news/mape-it-consolidation-advisory-committee

We were joined during the meeting by Sue Wickham, HR director in Admin and OET, (Sue is working with the agency HRs in this consolidation); Jim Jorstad, Labor Relations working with the consolidation; and Colleen Schmitz, Admin/OET Liaison.

Topics covered:

• March 16 was the deadline for CIOs to submit their final in/out lists for the consolidation.  Reclassification final reports will not be done until the beginning of next year.
• A discussion was held on the seniority issue for OET employees. Management shared an interest in keeping agency seniority. The committee did not agree. Sue Wickham shared scenarios of the layoff process for this new OET group as they were asked to explain the identification method used to identify positions that would be laid off (if that were to happen in the future). Wickham said they would look at functions of the positions first; positions tied to the function second; and make a final decision using a business reason for elimination of the positions.  She shared that management could still move people across agencies if they so choose. As the committee saw the ability for management to make such changes at their discretion, it solidified our stand for a statewide seniority list, as per the contract. That would bring about the widest protections for IT staff if there were layoffs. Wickham shared that layoffs would not be based on just classification/class option but on “qualifications.” This generated a lot of discussion by the MAPE committee as we felt the benchmarks used to define “qualified” are the same – classification and class option.
• Class options were discussed and Wickham shared that they were not happy with the current class options and plan to develop new ones for IT in the future. We said we wanted to be a part of that conversation.
• It was confirmed that once all employees are on the OET payroll that all HR issues for these employees would be handled through OET and not the agency.
• Committee members shared concerns about the consistent/inconsistent use of different percentages of IT work which would enable someone to be in or out of this consolidation.  Wickham stated that the consistent measurement was more than 50 percent, although some agencies are using much higher benchmarks.
• MAPE asked about a rumor regarding a possible ratio of how many 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 IT positions would be allowed. Wickham share there will be consideration for how many people are needed in each series. Also, new position descriptions are planned for ALL IT in this consolidation.
• A statement was made by Wickham that no one outside of this consolidation will or should be still classified as IT. Committee representatives have started outreach to their CIOs and HR folks to monitor the job audit process for reclassification of those IT employees NOT included in this consolidation. Also, those non-IT employees who will be in the consolidation will be expected to remain in their previous classification.
• Exempt/non-exempt: When asked about the IT classifications that have mixed exempt and non-exempt employees, Wickham shared that MMB determines individual positions and there will likely be fewer exempt positions when this consolidation is completed.
• OET (the agency) has finished its employee engagement survey (71 percent responded!) and it will be distributed statewide in mid-March.