PAT Council previews upcoming year and potential benefit changes

By Denise Hart, Media Relations

The PAT Council discussed its upcoming activities for 2005 at its January meeting, including the Family Friendly policy.

Chair Phil Hammond told new council members about their role and potential impacts, and encouraged them to take the long-term view and to work for change with perseverance. “You can make a difference,” Hammond said. “One example of that is the 50 percent waiver for extension courses. The analogy for this year is the Family Friendly policy. We are the collective conscience of the staff. If we don’t make it the first time, we’ll just keep coming back.”

Tracy Boyle, District 2, gave a status report about the Family Friendly policy from the late December System Personnel Policy Committee (SPPC). Professional, administrative and technical staff (PAT), operating staff (OS) and Cooperative Extension staff each have representatives to the SPPC.

The Family Friendly proposal seeks to improve paid time-off benefits to better support employees in meeting a variety of family-related needs. Extensive discussions have taken place in the last year about changes in workforce needs, the prevalence of family friendly time-off policies at comparator institutions and the new faculty contract that provided a new paid parental leave provision.

The current proposal calls for PAT staff to be allowed to use 10 days of accrued sick leave per year for illness of an immediate family members and medical needs including medical appointments for an immediate family members, prenatal and postnatal care of a spouse or significant other, caring for a new baby or adoptive/foster child after placement, and extended bereavement time, with supervisor notification, upon the death of an immediate family member.

An immediate family member is defined as a spouse, parent, legal dependent or persons living within the staff member’s household for a significant period of time.

Creating this new option creates a cost to the employer, as do all benefits. “We need to give up something to balance it out,” Boyle said.

Council representatives will contact or survey members of their district about the two options anticipated to be voted on in late February. The first one limits the maximum accumulation of annual leave to 35 days per year, instead of the current 36 days. The annual payout at the time of leave from the university would remain at a maximum of 30 days.

The second option affects the current separate category of bereavement time by merging it with sick time for PAT staff. The additional bereavement leave would be deducted from sick time along with personal sick usage and days needed for the current bereavement policy.

Hammond reminded the council that the UNH vote is one of several for the SPPC, which includes representatives from all the university system higher education institutions. Following the February vote, USNH Director of Human Resources Joan Tambling plans to take the proposal to USNH presidents and the board of trustees.

USNH also is discussing a proposal to increase the rate of contribution to continue medical coverage for the spouse, domestic partner and/or dependents of a retiree. This proposal makes no change in the Medicare complementary plan, known also as “MCP” or “retiree medical” plan. The proposal would require a contribution of 50 percent of the cost of maintaining medical coverage for the spouse, domestic partner and/or dependents of a retiree who has begun the MCP or retiree medical plan, after three years of coverage at the rate of contribution paid by active employees. This change would affect only those hired prior to 1993 who chose the “MCP” option, and who have a spouse, domestic partner and/or dependents needing more than three years of active employee medical coverage after the employee retirees. Employees with the ARC plan have no option for coverage after the retired employee reaches age 65.

Hammond stated that the widely varying ages of spouses/partners of retiring staff could cost USNH $2.1 million. One council member raised the question about what happens for staff who declined the extra 1 percent contribution to their retirement plans. Boyle felt that this topic would probably roll over into the March meeting.

Sharon Demers, assistant vice president of human resources, believed that there was some possibility of grandfathering people close to retirement age or re-opening up the ARC option to provide the extra 1 percent contribution. Hammond noted that the PAT $2.1 million is part of a total picture of $6.7 million for the university system.

In other business, the council has an opening for District 3 representative. Donna Redfern will suceed Polly Daniels, who retired, in District 1.

The next deadline for PAT professional development grants is March 17; staff who apply may be eligible for awards up to $700.

The five-year review of Responsibility Centered Management (RCM) is expected to be one agenda item for the Feb. 10 joint retreat of the OS, PAT, and Extension Educators (EE) councils.

The next PAT Council meeting is scheduled for March 2 at 1:30 p.m. in the Elliott Alumni Center conference room.