Many of the Staff Voice readers have responded with many questions and concerns over the past months. We appreciate your readership and your active participation in taking the time to provide us with feedback. This article is intended to summarize the responses to questions provided over the past two months. Please let us know if I did not address your emailed concern in this article.

Are we representing the staff in discussions regarding furloughs and budget reductions?

Staff Assembly is not a representative body in a similar way as a bargaining unit functions. We are a group that strives to give the administration a perspective of what staff feel is important and serve as a sounding board for major campus issues. The chair has been included in a variety of meetings and, through our surveys and publications, we have been able to channel the general perspectives of staff into the decision making process. For example, our survey results followed by a series of articles emphasizing what Staff Assembly is concerned about had a significant impact on the changes to the initial furlough plans. In fact, the initial survey conducted and its summary review had reached not only campus leaders but UC leaders as well.

We do our best to convey the diverse staff opinion at various discussions with campus leaders. The Staff Assembly Executive Committee, made up of volunteers, have also reviewed a variety of comments and reflected their perspectives in various public articles in the Staff Voice. This allows you to know and respond to what we are putting forth to the administration.

For full representation, we suggest that those who are in bargaining units seek to also provide input to their appropriate representatives. They are the means by which you can address many issues pertaining to your working conditions and compensation.

Do we consider the financial hardships of staff in furlough discussions?

Financial hardship is a given in all these discussions and especially those at the lowest end of the salary scales. With the more numerous salary scale application of furloughs, we recognize a clear attempt by the university to accommodate and respond to staff concerns. I think we recognize also that over the past several years, there is clearly more engagement of the staff by the administration to get a sense of their perspectives. Staff Assembly recognizes this and considers how other public institutions or even universities may not be engaging their staff in these discussions.

There are many stories of hardship and of people on the brink where a few hundred dollars a month less can mean tough decisions over fundamentals such as paying a mortgage or making sure children are fed, clothed and cared for while both parents are working. This can and will likely be faced by people at a variety of salary levels. Unfortunately, there are many more stories like this from other UC employees and employees throughout the state and nation because of the economic times.  This is truly what makes decisions difficult. What is in our control is simply to make sure that decision makers are informed about the consequences of various decisions.

Do we consider the likely increased burden on staff even during furloughs?

We have made a note of this on several occasions on the Staff Voice articles as well as with administrators. The output of the university and the expectations from staff have to be adjusted in accordance to the reduction in staff working hours. There are instances where this is not possible such as in health care, emergency services, grant funded program support and in other instances where there are business or contractual obligations with deadlines. We do not need to conduct any rigorous study to know that to achieve some university objectives, people will still need to work beyond their adjusted reduced work time. Alternatively, it may also mean fewer vacation hours used because of the need to meet business objectives.

These decisions to be available and to work after hours are made individually. Exempt employees are likely the most impacted as there are no requirements to track overtime. Each individual and department needs to acknowledge this effort and hopefully have a process to track this effort. It may well be that the university’s budget, even after furloughs and other adjustments, does not fully reflect the true cost of operations. When budgets recover, it would be important to focus on this issue as a priority.

We also strongly encourage individuals and their departments make an effort to communicate to their customers to adjust service expectations. Some things will take longer and some things may not be done at all because of fewer work hours. This is the reality and the consequence of the budget reductions. In this manner, there will be less of an impact on individuals and fewer pressures to work beyond established work hours.

What are we doing to adjust expectations from faculty, students, and other staff in light of reductions?

Staff Assembly will be asking the administration to establish a means for departments to communicate service elimination or reductions to the campus. We have already seen some examples from colleges posting information on Dateline.  However, we may need a central location that can be updated frequently and is searchable to make it easy for the campus community to know the various changes in services. This is part of our focus to seek transparency in the process.

What else can be done to help?

Several responses came from readers who thought about what things are in their control that they can do. The uncertainty of the situation but the certainty of making less money is a concern but there are things that can be done.

• Staff Assembly will be working with a variety of local vendors and continue our discussions with various campus services to address possible staff discounts. If you have personal contacts with a vendor or campus service provider that can help us negotiate discounts for you, please let us know. This effort would hopefully save people money.
• We want each of you to send ideas of how you might reduce your expenses so we can share those ideas with the rest of the staff. For example, have you started a garden to grow your own food, used more coupons to save money, gone to second-hand stores, carpooled, etc. We will look at establishing a site to share these ideas.
• If there are small things that you have done to save your department money, those are also excellent stories to share. Any savings to the departments will mean fewer pressures to continue furloughs or implement other budget reduction measures.
• How will you look at ways to take advantage of furlough days? Are there things that you can do to either save money or make money? Are there things that you do to improve your health or sense of well-being? Will you help others by volunteering with a service organization? Tell us what you plan to do as potential ideas for others.
• Look out for and participate in opportunities to provide feedback to campus administrators or your own college or department to be part of the decision-making process.
• Exercise your right as a citizen.  UC’s budget is determined through a political process with the governor and state legislators ultimately making such decisions of how much to allocate for any particular program.  Our university is impacted significantly by that process.  Anyone can call or email their local state representatives to convey their perspectives at any time. Each of you have more specific knowledge about what happens when programs are reduced and their impact as well as your own personal impact of furloughs. Those stories can be sent to state decision-makers so they are fully informed about their decisions and potential decisions.

Please continue to send us your comments at staffvoice@ucdavis.edu