[Vision2020] UI Task Force Members Paid!!?

[Ron Force]

There are no Deans or Directors on the Task Force-- just faculty, staff &
students.

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Ron Force          Moscow ID USA
rforce at moscow.com
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-----Original Message-----
From: hayfields at clarkston.com [mailto:hayfields at clarkston.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2004 8:06 AM
To: Ron Force; vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: RE: [Vision2020] UI Task Force Members Paid!!?


While I certainly support the mission of the task force, I am having a
little
more trouble swallowing the explanation of why they should be paid, in
addition to their regular salaries.
First of all we all make choices, choices about how we spend our time and
our
money.
All Deans and directors are expected to attend committee meetings as a part
of
their jobs.  So they definitely shouldn't get paid.  Sometimes you work more
than 80 hours a week and that is just the way it works out. That is why they
get paid more.  Whether you COULD have gotten a summer job instead of
serving
on the task force is not really to the point.
Further, each task force member has the OPTION of taking the money as
income,
choosing not to reimburse departments if they want. And if the expectation
is
that the department will be reimbursed for your time, why give the money to
the members and not just devote it to the departments. Give the students
vouchers for tuition and fees.
Further can the Deans who are on the committee take part in a decision to
provide themselves with a pecuniary benefit for serving on the committee?
They
certainly implied that they did.

It seems to me that as many of the members are "high powered individuals" it
should not take them 500 hours to decide what the values and vision of the
University ought to be. Most of them should have been thinking about this
before.
Here in a nutshell is my concern, a group of hand picked individuals - is
being paid a not insignificant sum (at least to us low-powered individuals)
to
establish a set of "visions and values".  This University belongs to the
state, not the workers here.  So why aren't any members from the state at
large on the committee?  Why not Shirley Ringo, or Tom Trail? How about
someone unaffiliated with the U? The State Board of Education and the state
should tell us what our values and vision should be, our discussion should
be
about how to implement it. The major work for the task force has already
been
completed by the committees already appointed by previous administrations_
i.e. what are our inconsistencies, weak areas, areas of budgetary concern,
areas of financial mismanagement etc... not to mention the money that has
already been expended on consultants- Pappas, Prince etc...  At this point
they should be coming up with solutions.

A good example would be to release to the campus the entire Pappas report
and
the solutions that will be implemented.  We spent good money to get that
report and we ought to be announcing the changes in policies and procedures
section by section to fix the problems.


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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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