| All Libraries Meeting
April 7, 2003
9:00am, 59 people in attendance.
John Culshaw, Faculty Director for Systems update:
He anticipates that "pay-for-printing" will be implemented
this summer, contingent upon a decision this week by Chancellor Byyny.
Details are to follow.
Webmail: Systems will help employees migrate to this email service,
but people should not do so on their own. Webmail migration would
take place over the summer
Harriet Rebuldela, Acting Head for Technical Services:
From May until Janet Swan Hill's return, Pat Morris will be acting
head of the division. Since there are no additional funds available
to implement the physical reorganization plan, probably no major moves
will occur except perhaps for Serials Acquisitions sharing space with
monographic Acq.
Susan Anthes, Assoc. Director for Public Services:
In reply to a previously-submitted question about the status of the
MPH library, she said that there are no funds currently for changes.
The Physics Dept. has offered to raise money to keep this branch
open, but has not yet found the funds. In regard to the East Asian
Library, we hope to persuade Zhijia Shen to return.
Scott Seaman, Assoc. Director for Admin. Services:
Regarding faculty recruitment, he said that they are interviewing
this week for the dept. head of Reference; the search committee is
still formulating the ad for the dept. head of Cataloging; and the
ad for the asst. dean for development will close at the end of April.
Start dates for new employees/appointments are: Peggy Jobe
as head of the Engineering Library, 1 July; Heather Wicht in IDS,
14 April; Katie Lage in Maps, 16 June; and Holley Long in Systems,
1 May.
Scott also mentioned that the custodial staff has lost 1 staff position,
so that each worker is responsible for ~ 80,000 sq.ft.; our patience
& understanding would be helpful, if things are not cleaned up
quite as quickly as hoped. Specific problems should be emailed
to Dan Davidson.
Since the copy center is no longer self-supporting, it may eventually
close [almost certainly by next year], due to lower level of copier
use. Although the in-house center is convenient for specific
needs such as overheads & color copies, these services are available
through the copy center at the UMC. However, even when the copy
center closes, most of that space will still be reserved for copier
needs [as a staging area for supplies, etc.].
Jim Williams, Dean:
Hoped all were enjoying the virtual donuts and coffee.
Current budget situation.
We may need another meeting before school is out this term because
the Long Bill will not be completed for another two weeks and there
is a lot we don't know
We DO know that last fall the Library was told to cut $374,000 for
2002/03. This was done be taking about $200K from Louisville storage,
$52K from Security, and $130K from faculty and staff vacancies. Last
week we were told it would be 2 times that amount and the Provost
said it was 2 times plus the original. That makes it about $1.1 million.
Our money is > 40% People, >50% Materials and ~ 7% Operations.
The last cut came from People and Operations. So Jim will argue that
future cut will need to come largely from Materials. He anticipates
they will ask for some of it to be from People. Total cut for UCB
would be about $17 Million.
Campus' major hope is that we will get Enterprise status. President
Hoffman is working with legislative committee to come to a compromise
on the bill for Enterprise status. We need the flexibility to set
tuition. This would make for a generally better picture and there
might be money to backfill some cuts. The School of Mines has enterprise
status and has greater management of its budget and is not subject
to TABOR Amendment. If we get Enterprise status and General Fund allocations
to CU are lowered, other state institutions may suffer because their
spending limit under TABOR may also be lowered. President Hoffman
needs to address this with the other institutions. Stay tuned. If
we get Enterprise status, we will need to keep up lobbying for Federal
money and we will need grants more than ever. The bill goes back to
the legislature this week. It could mean $12M new dollars for UCB
if tuition is raised. Most of that would go for faculty to teach,
but we would be second as Infrastructure.
Jim met with the other CU Deans to see if there were programs being
cut so we could cut along the same lines, but no one is proposing
any deep cuts. 21,000 applications FOR ADMISSION have been received
for 4,000 seats at CU. There is reluctance to cut programs when the
student population is growing. The threat to furlough state employees
this year demonstrated how serious the situation has become. Jim will
do his best to keep the cuts away from the People side. Closing evenings
and weekends does not result in significant savings.
Another problem we have is that the Courier has not been funded by
the JBC. It stops here about 1000 times a year and transports books
for ILL, Pascal and Prospector. We pay for it as do all the institutions
that use it. We need to try to keep it. Prospector use is way up again.
Math-Physics Closure. Because of the budget situation, we may need
to shift classified staff and student budgets to other operations.
No decision has been made on Math Physics.
The Long Bill locks in the number for the year, but they can recall
more money after it is passed.
Jim will study the PRP Final Report and make what changes we can
in accordance with the Strategic Plan and the current fiscal environment.
We will look into funding for transportation to and from Pascal, and
a taskforce on revenue generation has been formed. The Libraries
may need to begin charging for some services.
In closing, Jim said he will ask Susan to look at creating a one
service core in Norlin for Reference, ILL, etc. We will look at shared
schedules, unification of reference desks. We will be stronger if
we share the work. Faculty should know that he is trying to get Zhijia
back. Late summer is when he will have resolution of that.
In reply to question from Terrie O'Neal, Jim said that classified staff
would remain in the state classified system, even if we do get Enterprise
status for CU.
To the question of selling the Iraqi Police File collection, most of
it does not belong to CU, but to the Department of State and if Kurdistan
is revived the files will go to them. The collection is not available
for use. It is "in transitional storage"
Angela Palermo asked if partner benefits would be possible for staff,
if enterprise status is achieved. Jim replied that we would hope
to maintain the classified staff system but would hope to modify it
to suit our needs.
Suzanne Larsen noted that with Enterprise status we may get decreased
general funds from the state; she expressed the hope that there would
remain a "base level" of state financial support.
Laura Wright asked if voluntary furloughs are possible. Scott said
that these would be treated as "leave-without-pay" and would
provide a one-time savings of money, but would not address longer-term
need to reduce costs.
Keith Gresham asked if 9-month contracts for faculty might result.
Jim replied that these were possible, as were other decreases
in other funds, such as phone expenses, supplies, and travel budgets.
Karen Taylor noted that further cuts might be required for fiscal year
2003/04. Jim added that he hoped that Enterprise status for CU
might provide an additional $12 million for new & additional faculty,
campus-wide.
Helene McHendry asked if there would be incentives for early retirement.
Jim replied that such deals needed to be equitable; such arrangements
last semester at UC-Denver had resulted in problematic, illegal deals.
He added that the university currently has no fiscal-exigency plan in
place; Ann Costain from the President's office is examining the possibilities.
Constance Stallard asked if there would be additional funding cuts
for FY 03/04 here at Boulder. Jim replied that this might depend
upon a pending bill in the legislature, to eliminate the senior tax
credit. Other possibilities to increase state funds even might include
eliminating Medicaid for legal aliens.
Angela asked if any escape valve existed for the TABOR [the "Taxpayers
Bill of Rights"] amendment; Jim noted that most Colorado municipalities
have "un-TABOR-ed"; Dave Anderson added that AFSCME will sponsor
an upcoming panel discussion about TABOR.
With regard to flextime: Jim said that he favored not having specific
rule-based arrangements for flextime. He feels that our general policy
on flextime is sufficient to guide us, and that an environment of one-on-one
arrangements between the supervisor and employee provide the most flexibility.
However, the AD for TS was asked by her supervisors to develop a TS
policy, and she complied with that request. If other AD's decide to
develop similar policies for their units, it is their prerogative to
do so, with the understanding that such policies (as with the TS policy)
must comply with state personnel rules. Helene noted that this new rule
now affects ~ 1⁄2 the classified staff. Jim suggested that
we should revisit this issue within T.S. Helene and Pat Morris felt
that any changes should await Janet Swan Hill's return from sabbatical.
Harriet asked that supervisors let her know their preference on
the issue.
Finally, Susan Anthes announced that Ralphie's Resource Center will
close July 1; the space will revert to the libraries' use.
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