University Governance
RETIREES’ RIGHTS AND BENEFITS FOR FY09
Annual Report of the Committee on Retirees’ Rights and Benefits
Submitted to Marianne Berry, President of SenEx and University Senate
by George Crawford, Chair, CRRB
May 1, 2009
The annual report is organized around the list of “Charges to the Committee . . . for FY09.” It would be a serious oversight if I failed to mention the excellent support provided for CRRB’s activities by Kathy Reed and Molly Mulloy. They can be trusted absolutely to provide accurate, helpful information in lightning-quick fashion and to otherwise help the committee meet its obligations. Their reliable help is very much appreciated. I also want to publicly acknowledge the committed service to the committee’s work by the following CRRB members: Linda Gerdes; Jane Gibson; Ruthie Hatfield; Pam Houston; Mary Lee Hummert; Jerry Niebaum; Marilyn Stokstad and Vic Wallace. It has been a particular pleasure to work with colleagues who take the work of the committee seriously and make spirited, valuable contributions to the group’s deliberations.
Readers will find a letter to the Provost at the end of the annual report. The letter expresses the sense of the CRRB regarding the April 1, 2009 announcement by the Provost on the withdrawal of certain Retirees’ benefits. While not an item specified in the committee’s official charges for the year, the committee’s sense of the seriousness of the matter is sufficient to warrant its inclusion in the formal record of the year’s work. The reader is encouraged to take special notice of the recommendation following the letter to the Provost.
Respectfully submitted with thanks to all those mentioned above and to Mary Berry for her service to University Governance.
George Crawford, Chair, CRRB
CHARGES TO THE COMMITTEE ON RETIREES’ RIGHTS AND BENEFITS FOR FY09
Approved by SenEx 6/24/08
Date approved by University Senate:
- Contact SenEx chair Marianne Berry, andysmom@ku.edu, for further information or to schedule a meeting with SenEx to discuss recommendations for action on the charges.
Mary Berry and George Crawford met to discuss the work of the CRRB and George appeared before SenEx on March 24 to discuss CRRB’s recommendation to add the President of the Endacott Society (or designate) as a regular member of the CRRB and to have a liaison from the Provost’s office designated as an ex officio member. George also discussed possible language for recommendations to HR/EO and the Endacott Society regarding “exit interviews for retirees”. The addition of two members to the CRRB was approved. The proposed language for recommendations on exit interview solutions was tabled.
- Minutes of each meeting should be e-mailed to University Governance (govern@ku.edu) as soon as they are approved. The minutes will be posted to the Governance web site.
Minutes were e-mailed to Kathy Reed for each of the CRRB meetings through March. The minutes of the April meeting will be sent as soon as they are prepared.
- If the committee is recommending a change to university policy or rules, SenEx must officially receive that recommendation before March 17, 2009, in order to meet timeline requirements for full review.
Accomplished.
- A final report on the committee’s actions on each of the charges, as well as the committee’s recommendations for FY09 charges and membership, should be e-mailed to the Governance Office (govern@ku.edu) by April 1, 2009.
This was not accomplished until May 1, 2009.
STANDING CHARGES
1. Promote all appropriate means of communication with retirees, with special emphasis on seeking information from them about their needs and concerns. (ongoing)
This charge was addressed effectively by a CRRB whose
members took the charge to heart and met almost every month to address matters of concern to retirees. The meetings of CRRB were regularly focused on the “charges” and progress was monitored. Meeting agendas and minutes will attest to this.
2. Maintain communication with the Endacott Society (particularly the chair of the Society’s Benefits Committee). (ongoing)
Significant progress on this charge. The President of the Endacott Society (or designee) was added as a regular member of the CRRB and the chair of CRRB joined the Endacott Society. Productive collaboration has resulted.
3. Advise the Department of Human Resources and the Office of the Provost on issues affecting the maintenance of information about retirees (e.g., about maintenance of up to date mailing lists). (ongoing)
“Substantial progress” on this item. HR/EO has been commendably supportive and cooperative in their treatment of requests from the CRRB for information and assistance. Ola Faucher and Lynn George have been wonderfully helpful. The addition of Mary Lee Hummert as Provost’s liaison to CRRB has also helped to bring retirees’ rights and benefits into more prominent focus in the Office of the Provost. Work remains to be done here, but progress is evident.
- Seek feedback from retirees and University offices about the Retirees Handbook and work with staff to ensure that it remains current. (ongoing)
Jeannette Johnson (Office of the Provost) has been effectively vigilant in seeing to it that the Retirees’ Handbook is updated and current. Jerry Niebaum and Betty Banks deserve special mention for their valued contributions to this endeavor.
SPECIFIC CHARGES
- Work with SenEx and the Provost’s or Chancellor’s Office in the discussion, negotiation and potential implementation of actions recommended in the Final Report of the CRRB 2007-2008. Report to SenEx by December 1.
This charge was “substantially addressed”. There will always be work to be done in this area, of course, but if SenEx and University Senate will maintain their focused concern on the matter, progress will be made. Specific mention needs to be made here of the “possible language of recommendations to HR/EO and the Endacott Society regarding exit interviews”. As mentioned in the records of the CRRB, HR/EO already conducts an “exit survey” of employees who leave the University. HR/EO has generously offered to work with Governance/CRRB to add questions to the existing exit survey that might be helpful to the effort to be more effective in maintaining contact with and being of more effective service to retirees.
- Coordinate with the Provost’s Office and the Office of Institutional Research and Planning to develop and conduct exit interviews for retirees, informed by exit interviews that were conducted in 2007-2008 with those individuals leaving the university voluntarily. Submit results to SenEx for review by February 2, 2009.
The CRRB essentially concluded that the matter of discerning the views of retirees might be more effectively and efficiently addressed by seeing whether existing avenues might be employed, perhaps with slight modification, to address the issue. More specifically, HR/EO has an existing “exit survey” (mentioned above) that could be “tweaked” to gather information specifically related to retiree concerns. It also came to the committee’s attention that the Endacott Society has a long standing “Oral History Project” that entails preserving retirees’ reflections on their experience at The University of Kansas in written records. Given an admittedly limited exposure to a sampling of these oral histories, the chair of CRRB is enthusiastically persuaded that the Endacott Society’s collection represents a rich potential source which “The University” would be well advised to deliberately and thoroughly peruse. In doing so, “The University” could open its ears to the insights of individuals who have absorbed the meaning of the institution through their lived experience in the institution. If there is anything at all to the old saw about the value of knowing history, there would be much gained from mining those oral histories for the insights to be gained about “what it’s like to be retired, and what might be done to improve it”. This may not be the sort of task that a committee of volunteers could take on in the manner required to do it justice. It certainly does appear to be the kind of initiative that would yield a treasure of insight if exploited in just the right way. It does seem to be the sort of possibility which, if thoughtfully addressed, would provide valuable results. We strongly encourage University Senate and SenEx to make the Endacott Society’s Oral History Project an action item. A working question to guide the discussion might be: What useful suggestions for improving retirees’ rights and benefits could be gleaned from studying the Endacott Society’s Oral Histories?
Special Item: Letter on behalf of the CRRB to the Provost regarding the Provost’s April 1st announcement of the temporary suspension of certain retirees’ benefits.
KU’s Committee on Retirees’ Rights and Benefits
33 Strong Hall, Campus
April 23, 2009
Dr. Richard W. Lariviere, Provost
Strong Hall
The University of Kansas
Campus
Dear Provost Lariviere:
The purpose of this letter is to convey the sense of the Committee on Retirees' Rights and Benefits (CRRB) regarding your April 1, 2009 declaration of intent to temporarily suspendthe issuance to faculty/staff retirees of complimentary tickets to certain Lied Center performances. As you know, CRRB is the governance committee charged with looking after the rights and benefits of retirees to improve their experience and foster their participation in the life of the university.
The committee appreciates the threat to the university's core mission from the Legislature’s mandated budget reductions. However, the announced policy regarding complimentary tickets asks a disproportionate, probably long-lived sacrifice from retirees at a time when retirees are sensitive to an emergent pattern of repeated reductions in benefits. They take this as a diminution of appreciation for the work they have done and continue to do to promote the university’s success.
Unlike active faculty and staff, retirees have seen their income shrink with the national economic crisis more severely than the university's. Furthermore, the complimentary tickets for retirees represent a smaller marginal cost to either the Lied Center or the university than faculty/staff ticket discounts. (The tickets are rarely issued for sell-out performances and, in tight times, will rarely be replaced by sales at full price.) Finally, the tickets mean much to those who use them and have been viewed as an attraction of retiree life at the University of Kansas for over 30 years.
The university’s welfare depends on the good will of large groups of stakeholders, including its retirees, who share in great part the good memories of alumni and contribute in myriad ways to the function of the university. It is the sense of the CRRB that the harm your policy threatens for institutional welfare and constituent good will is penny-wise and pound-foolish.
We respectfully ask you to reconsider your decision to temporarily suspend complimentary tickets for retirees.
Most sincerely,
[Signed:] George Crawford, Chair, CRRB
Copies to:
Chancellor Robert Hemenway
Jerry Niebaum, President, The Endacott Society
Joe Steinmetz, Interim Provost
Mary Berry, President, SenEx
Dale Seuferling, President, KU Endowmnt
Tim VanLeer, Director, The Lied Center
Mary Lee Hummert, Provost’s Liaison to CRRB
Kevin Corbett, President, KU Alumni Association
Members of CRRB
Comment:
For the purposes of this annual report, we want to emphasize one sentence of the letter to the Provost by repeating it here:
“It is the sense of the CRRB that the harm your policy threatens for institutional welfare and constituent good will is penny-wise and pound-foolish.”
“The sense of the CRRB” on the unilateral withdrawal of a retiree benefit by the Provost is probably not fully aired within the limited context of the above letter. “Penny-wise and pound-foolish” is a modest and conservative summative characterization of terms members of the CRRB used to describe their disappointment at both the approach used to arrive at the announced decision and the decision itself. In light of the elevated level of concern evident in CRRB members’ discussion of the withdrawal an arguable retiree right and benefit, the Committee therefore recommends that SenEx and University Senate do the following:
Recommendation
Make the request articulated in the last sentence of CRRB’s letter to the Provost an action item that will be prosecuted to a successful resolution. That is to say, persuade either the current Provost or his successor to “. . . reconsider your decision to temporarily suspend complimentary tickets for retirees” [and to restore the benefit].
Added Comments/Recommendations on Parking
Two very specific concerns were raised by retirees about parking. The first related to safety concerns in the pedestrian tunnel from the lower parking area into the Kansas Union. The suggested solution: Allow people attending evening events in the Union to park in the parking structure without charge in the evening.
The second concern was voiced by a retiree who bought a permit to park in the structure adjacent to the Union. The concern stems from restrictions on areas of Campus to which the owner of the Union parking structure permit has access. The owner would prefer that access to all areas of campus be allowed.