Minutes -  UTK Faculty Senate Budget and Planning Committee
meeting of October 26, 2015

Prepared by L. Gross - November 21, 2015 

In attendance: Louis Gross (Chair), Vice Chancellor Chris 
Cimino, Jennifer Franklin, Michael Fry, Gary Smith, 
Phyllis Thompson, Kris Tobin, Xioapeng Zhao

1. After welcomes, the Committee members were asked to read through the 
long minutes from the previous meeting with Chancellor Cheek and 
to suggest any needed changes. 

2. Following on the discussion with the Chancellor, the Committee 
prioritized plans for meetings with the various Vice Chancellors 
prior to a meeting in late spring with the Chancellor's Cabinet. 
The Committee suggested that priority should be given to establishing
meetings with the Provost, Vice Chancellor for Reserach and Engagement, 
Vice Chancellor for Atheletics and Vice Chancellor for Developent and 
Alumni Affairs. Lou will attempt to establish meetings with each
of these individuals over the next several months suring regular 
Committee meetings. The objective of these meetings is to 
focus on "big picture" policy issues. 

3. The Committee discussed the proposed changes to Fiscal policy on 
compensation for those supported on sponsored projects and expressed 
concerns about the impact on attracting individuals to "soft-money"
positions that offered no long-term stability relative to other 
similar State-funded positions. The concern focused on the need
to offer higher compensation perhaps for those hired on grant funds.
Chris Cimino agreed to pass these concerns on to appropriate
Systems-level officials.  

4. There was discussion about gender and compensation with the Committee
again expressing its suggestion that UTK should be transparent and 
proactive in clarifying the current situation regarding gender
and sallary for faculty members and that it is important to
get the facts, which is what a new study would do. Regardless
of the results obtained from a study, it would be a net-plus for
UTK to enage and show it is willing to determine the facts. 

5. The Committee discussed outsourcing issues at length and 
this resulted in the below report being submitted to
the Senate Executive Council.

Report from the B&P Committee for the Nov. 2 UTK Faculty Senate 
Executive Commitee Meeting:

The UTK Faculty Senate Budget and Planning Committee has had two 
meetings that included discussions of the issue of outsourcing 
facilities and management services. This discussion has included 
Chancellor Cheek and Vice Chancellor Cimino (note that VC Cimino 
is serving on the State-wide Strategy for Efficiencies in Real 
Estate Management (SEREM) Committee). 

We discussed the suggested resolution read to the Senate at the 
September 21 meeting by Cassie Watters. We also initiated a 
discussion with the University Faculty Council on the matter 
through the UTK representative, Professor Candace White. 
We concluded that it would be beneficial for the Senate to 
formally support the public statements of President DiPietro
regarding the UT System response to State actions. We have worded
the below proposed resolution in a manner that we suggest it might
be similarly adopted with slight modifications at other UT System 
campuses by their respective Senates. 

The Committee has included in the below draft a statement in { ...}
that we suggest might be included to go beyond support of President 
DiPietro and state Senate opposition to further outsourcing given
lack of evidence of benefit. However we were not sure the full Senate
would support this inclusion so we are sending it to the Exec 
Committee for further consideration of this portion.  
  

WHEREAS, Governor Haslam recently initiated a call to examine potential benefits to the state of Tennessee by outsourcing the management and operations of virtually every state-owned facility, including college and university buildings.

WHEREAS, The University of Tennessee at Knoxville has in the past and has continued to outsource a variety of operations to meet campus requirements while constraining costs.

WHEREAS, President Joe DiPietro has repeatedly stated his objective to make decisions regarding outsourcing that are appropriately chosen to meet the needs of the various units of The University of Tennessee.

WHEREAS, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville has been well-served over recent years through the closing of outsourced contracts of certain campus services and the hiring of regular, full-time employees to provide these services.

The UTK Faculty of Senate resolve that:
 
As there has been no evidence provided to support the benefits to campus life or any significant cost savings of further outsourcing of facility and management services{, we oppose the potential additional outsourcing that could be forced upon the UT System due to State actions}.
 
We support President DiPietro's position that outsourcing of services at the various University of Tennessee campuses be decided by the University community rather than by a central State authority.