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17 December 2019

 

Staff Advisory Council Meeting 

Tuesday, December 17, 2019 

 

Listening to and lifting staff voices to build an informed community 

 

Attendees:  Pamela Prescod-Caesar, Diane Fritz, Pamela Borkowski-Valentin, Susan Eagar, Garry Beauford, Jean Nilan, Nabil Kashyap, Jenna Rose, Lynn Grady, Pam Harris, Mel Leeds

 

Calendar: 

Tuesday, Dec 17 SAC meeting, 101 S. Chester Room 002, 9-10:00 am

Tuesday, Jan 9 SAC and AAC meeting, Scheuer Room, 3-4:15 pm 

Tuesday, Jan 21 SAC meeting, Bond Memorial Hall, 9-10:00 am

 

Guest:  no guest this meeting

 

For Discussion: 

Comments/Questions/Suggestions (10 min on each items): 

  • Q: For employees that report time in the MySwarthmore system, the time tracking for payment and the system that is used to track vacation/sick time are separate from one another, and do not always sync up appropriately.  It is thus "on the employee" to track their time and verify its correctness, since Banner and the timesheet system do not sync up in a way that can be relied upon, from what the site and HR report.

    • 1) I hope that someday soon we can have a single place where an employee could look at and trust vacation/sick time remaining as well as time taken.  It doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to think that this is not only possible but is already a problem that has been solved in many other institutions.

    • 2) I hope to not require the onus to be on the employee to be "in charge" of this.  My sense is that this type of employee time checking unfairly benefits people in desk jobs (such as myself), and unfairly treats those who are not using or familiar with computers as much, or who may not feel as encouraged or enabled to advocate for themselves on the basis of their position or their supervisory situation.

    • This seems very fixable and something that is currently very unfairly favoring a part of our population.

A: Use in Banner Self Service/mySwarthmore

    • Check banner self-service aka. mySwarthmore.  The employee should be able to check what hasn’t been deducted. 

    • You have to calculate from your salary view

    • It is only as correct as the time you reported and check against the system

    • For any concerns, staff should contact payroll (swatts1@swarthmore.edu)

 

  • Q: A conference registration was paid 6/26 and submitted 6/28, but was reimbursed after the conference in late July and billed to the next fiscal year, regardless of when the charge occurred or was submitted because it appears to be college policy to wait until after the event. Not a question of what the policy is, but rather whether it can be changed? Or what else can we do to prevent this from happening again? This department has a small budget and had surplus set aside for this, but because it was loaded to this budget, we are now out of money.

  • Q: There is a concern about faculty and staff fronting expenses on personal credit or debit cards and waiting for reimbursements weeks or months later. This has come up multiple times in the interdisciplinary programs’ office. Coordinators for all departments and interdisciplinary programs should have a P-Card to help pay job position advertisements, association memberships and registrations for conferences, catering, dinners with guest lecturers, and other similar expenses.

A: First contact supervisor about having a P-Card. Next contact PCard Purchasing Office.
 

  • Q: What is the appropriate use of Faculty Staff Digest? Concerns about using it as a marketplace.

A: HR sends the policy out each semester with signatory SAC (2 reminders/year). If you feel comfortable reminding fellow coworkers or faculty members, feel free to share and remind them of the policy.

 

  • Q:  "What is the college policy on medical cannabis for staff and faculty? Is it allowed on campus? Are you allowed to use it at work?"

A: HR is in the process of clarifying policy on controlled substances on campus. Currently, faculty/staff are not permitted to use cannabis on campus.

 

  • Q: Can campus have Labor Day as a holiday?

A: SAC still needs to draft a proposal and add data (Lynn Grady has the data) and then share with Pamela and Provost. We should benchmark other schools [peer group?] to see what they do. Can we all reach out to our SAC circles to see if a group can be formed to work on this?

    • FYI: All groups on campus get their full holidays, i.e., they might be prorated, or given time off in days. It depends on FTE status. 

      • If a staff person is concerned about a discrepancy or need for clarity check with Sue Watts.