On Thursday, March 12, 2009, UFF-PJCFA began negotiations with Administration concerning the retirement incentive program Dr. Meadows announced at All College Day.
Gean Ann Emond, Vice President of Business Affairs, presented this proposal to the Bargaining Team:
1. Eligibility: Must be a full-time PJC employee and 62 years of age OR 30 years creditable service in FRS with at least six (6) years full-time employment at PJC as of June 30, 2009.
2. Employee Participation: Participation is voluntary. Eligible employees have until April 30, 2009, to elect to participate. The decision of an employee to participate is irrevocable.
3. Effective Date: Employees electing to participate will choose an effective date of termination no later than June 30, 2009. If a faculty member is teaching a guaranteed summer contract, he or she may elect to leave at the end of that contract.
4. Benefits: Participants will receive the following benefits:
a. A one-time incentive payment equal to 100% of the employee’s sick leave balance as of the date of termination, not to exceed 125% of the employee’s annual salary, or 164 day contract for full-time faculty members. To the extent possible, the incentive payment will be handled in a tax-advantaged manner by being placed in the existing Bencor 401(a) Plan and/or an employer sponsored 403(b) Plan.
b. The college will pay the employee’s monthly health insurance premium for a period of three years, or until the employee reaches the age of 65, whichever comes first.
5. Employees who chose to participate in this incentive program will NOT be eligible to participate in the Optional Phased Retirement Program (OPRP).
6. In addition to the incentive payments described above, employees participating in this program will be paid annual leave payoffs in accordance with College policy.
7. The college reserves the right to limit its liability for the incentive program to the lesser of $500,000 or an amount that does not reduce the fund balance below 5%. If this limit is reached, employee participation will be based on the dates the employee elected to participate in the incentive plan.
Paige Anderson, Chief Negotiator for PJCFA, voiced the following concerns about the proposal:
- Any faculty member who has suffered a long-term illness and therefore has little sick-leave would not benefit from this proposal. As a result, a minimum dollar amount should be guaranteed.
- Since the dollar amount of the incentive is not capped per person, if a few high level administrators applied for the RIP, the bulk of the $500,000 allocated for the program would be used up before faculty could opt in. Therefore, a portion of the RIP funds should be allocated to the faculty before other employees are considered.
- If a high-level administrator opted into the program, that position would most likely have to be filled and the savings would be minimal.
- If a highly-paid faculty member opted into the program, should the position be filled, it would most likely be filled at about 50% of the retiree’s salary.
After this, PJCFA countered with these proposals:
2. Eligible employees will be allowed to enroll between April 15 and April 30.
a. 4 (a). Eligible employees will be offered a one-time incentive payment equal to 100% of the employee’s sick leave balance as of the date of termination, not to exceed 125% of the employee’s annual salary, or 164 day contract for full-time faculty members, OR $20,000—whichever is greater.
Mrs. Anderson also proposed the following:
1. A total of $300,000 of the $500,000 be reserved for faculty retirement incentives.
2. If the $500,000 allotment is reached, the employee’s retirement application will not be processed unless the employee wished to retire without the incentive. Those individuals whose request for the retirement incentive were not funded would have the right to first refusal should additional retirement incentive funds become available.
Mrs. Anderson inquired about the eligibility of employees who are currently participating in the Optional Phased Retirement Program (OPRP). Administration said that these individuals are already retired and are not eligible to participate in the retirement incentive.
Administration countered with these offers:
4(a). The $20,000 lump sum was not acceptable and proposed 25% of the employee’s salary as the lump sum amount.
They would not agree to set aside $300,000—or any other amount-- for faculty retirement incentives.
PJCFA asked the following questions:
(1) How many employees are eligible to participate in the incentive program as presented by Administration?
(2) How much money does the Administration anticipate the incentive program saving the College?
The Administration was not able to answer these questions.
Neither the Faculty Association nor the Administration had any additional proposals to make.
The College’s Chief Negotiator stated that this plan would be presented to the non-faculty employees whether or not the faculty ratifies the proposal. Talks will continue between the chief negotiators over the next few days.
8 comments:
Please, please ask that the savings from faculty (or at least a certain portion of the savings) go back into faculty salaries which can bring the bottom level of faculty salaries up. If you don't negotiate where the savings go then administration can spend it at will!
The idea is that the savings from retirement incentives will prevent faculty from being retrenched. It's designed to save jobs not boost salaries.
Not person one or two here. I'll be Sunday's Professor.
They could take the cost savings and use it for creating additional jobs. Faculty salaries could become an even smaller percentage of the budget while admnistrative and professional salaries would become larger. Perhaps you could negotiate a contingency. If the budget is not cut by more than X%, the reserved cost savings from faculty retirements will be committed to faculty salaries for faculty raises or faculty replacements.
The $500,000 allotted for retirement incentives is for ALL PJC employees. It will not result in a $500,000 savings for faculty positions.
In addition, administration is planning on having to retrench faculty even AFTER this retirement incentive occurs. That's why PJCFA tried to negotiate a certain minimum amount of dollars to faculty retirement, hoping that the more who might be enticed to retire, the fewer who might have to be fired.
Not much of an incentive as far as I am concerned. I can be bought but I ain't cheap.
There will be a cost savings if faculty retires. The cost savings which is not $500,000 could be contingently ear marked for faculty. If PJC's state allocation is not significantly decreased, the marked money could be put back into faculty, aannnnddd you would not worry about faculty or non-faculty losing their jobs.
I have a problem with the 62 or older stipulation. I am within three years of my retirement(59), and if the school were to pay my FRS for the last three years and give me 100% of sick leave and insurance until I am 65,I would be willing to retire. There are probably many of us who would do so, and it would save the school a very large amount of money. Could we offer that as an addition to the incentives so that those who do not wish to be retired early will have more options and forced retirements will not be required? By the way, I have been teaching for 36 years though not all at PJC.
There is no requirement that you must be 62 to take this incentive. The requirements are EITHER 62 and 6 years of PJC service or 30 years of PJC service at any age.
Basically, the College is trying to get rid of $500,000 of salaries NEXT year, not over the next three or five years. Therefore, such an incentive as you suggest wouldn't help the college out of its financial bind.
PJCFA has proposed increasing the total amount available for the incentive and been told there ISN'T any more to use.
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