[Vision2020] UI Task Force Members Paid!!?

[Ron Force]

Here's an excerpt from the latest TF Newsletter:

"In keeping our commitment to you to be honest and open, we want you to know
about the compensation package. The expectation is that each member of the
Vision and Resources Task Force will spend between 250 and 500 hours this
summer on Task Force business and, most likely, a considerable amount of
time in the Fall. Such a commitment of time makes it impossible for Task
Force members to take on summer jobs, teach summer classes or engage in
sponsored research. In the case of 12-month employees, an enormous burden is
placed on the units deprived of the services of Task Force members. In view
of this, the President, Provost and Deans all felt that it was essential to
create a compensation package that, in some measure, addresses this issue.
Since 9-month employees are not employed by the university in the summer,
they require the largest compensation ($7500 plus one month’s salary). The
remaining members of the Task Force will receive $7500. While each
individual situation is different, it is likely that the students will use
the compensation as salary to replace a summer job and the 12-month
employees will, in most cases, use the money to support their home units in
their absence."

The Task Force members were nominated by faculty and staff-- they're all
fairly well known on campus, and are generally high-powered individuals who
could be doing a number of different things.  Indeed, I heard that some
nominated individuals declined, figuring six months of research productivity
would do more good for their careers than serving on the TF.

The deliberations of the Task force are confidential.  While I have a
faculty member and a wife on the committee, they don't discuss anything with
me-- I get my information through rumors, gossip, and the TF Web site:

http://www.vrt.uidaho.edu/home/


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Ron Force          Moscow ID USA
rforce at moscow.com

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So if each task force member (and by my count there are 23) gets a
7500 "honorarium" my calculator makes that $172,500.00
And each professor gets one month of summer salary as well (or is it
instead)?

I have no idea how to calculate summer salary. It would be different for
each
professor based on base salary. It looks to me like 17 members are
professors,
and I have no idea how many of them are on 9 month(academic appointments) So
do the professors on a 12 month appointent get more or less than the 7500?

Anyway it sounds like we have just invested $200,000 for a Vision Task
Force.
Add that to the cost of the Pappas report...

Why was it necessary to pay them at all? Would they not have been on the
committee?  Couldn't the President just have appointed them and the
departments would work around it- recognizing the signal honor of having a
staff member on the committee?  Lots of UI committes are that way. Maybe
that
should have been a criteria for applying- that your dept could spare you.  I
know there are lots of Emeriti professors who would probably have been
willing
to serve for free, and think of the institutional knowledge! I am just very
curious about how this all works because I am comparing it with the Moscow
School Board- no extra dollars as far as I know, but a ton of work. More I
would venture to say than the Task Force.
Perhaps given the fact that that amount would pay the salaries of quite a
few
custodians, secretaries or even a couple of professors our vision is still
not
quite where it needs to be.

Heather Jordan
UI Alum
2001

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