Minutes of Benefits Advisory Committee (BAC): December 22, 2011

Attending: Lise Sanders, Steven Roof, Amy Diehl, Heather St. Germaine, Yaniris Fernandez, Jerry Bohdanowicz, Hilary Clark, Shelly Ruocco (ex officio)

I. Review and Follow-Up
Minutes discussed and will be approved via email, then posted on the web. Action Item: Shelly will send out minutes and all will send edits or approval so the Minutes can be posted.

II. Early Learning Center Report. Amy, Heather and Yaniris in their capacity as ELC parents, not as representatives of BAC, met with Casie Smith, director of the Early Learning Center (ELC) to discuss some ways the ELC's daily and annual schedule can better align to the work schedules of Hampshire faculty and staff. Among the topics discussed were extending pick-up time for the Infant Room, the August staggered schedule, spring break week and curriculum days. The next step is to discuss these issues with the ELC's Parent Advisory Committee.
? The BAC went on to discuss the fact that parents are using all their vacation time to cover time to care for their children when the ELC is closed. All requests and issues related to the ELC will be dealt with through the ELC's Parents Advisory Council (PAC), not the BAC, at this time. Action Items: None
? There was a related discussion about how to give our employees who are low income some additional resources, whether for childcare or other services (fuel assistance, vouchers for certain services, etc.). Amy Diehl shared a link http://massresources.org where people can find all sorts of assistance. Action Item: Shelly will see what the EAP offers for resources for low income individuals and families.

III. Tuition Grant. Shelly compared Tuition Grant and Tuition Remission policies. After some discussion the group recommended that the eligibility wording for Tuition Grant as for Tuition Remission, expanding somewhat those who would be eligible. Shelly and Jerry will work on a proposal to evaluate the costs of this change. While this recommendation is to provide fairness across benefits, there must be some evaluation of the possible cost to the College and whether or not at this time the College can afford it.

IV. Staff Early Retirement, Jerry Bohdanowicz. After a short discussion, this topic was deferred to the January meeting. Action Item: Jerry will present information in January.

V. Faculty FMLA. Lise and Yaniris explained the positive response to their presentation at the Faculty Meeting. They, along with Shelly, will visit School meetings in February and March to get feedback from faculty on the items designed so far. The FMLA policy for the individual faculty member still needs to be developed. Action Item: None

VI. Employee Survey. Hilary gave a brief overview of constructing a survey, that BAC must establish a survey goal. Ideas for questions included asking about the recent benefits changes, how employees feel about current benefits, what other benefits or what changes to current benefits are important to employees, which benefits are most important to employees, would employee like to see wellness benefits and if so what. Action Item: David Hoffmann will discuss this with BAC in January.

VII. After a brief discussion of possible agenda items for next time and a review of the dates for the BAC for the rest of the academic year, the meeting was adjourned.