The Senate’s proposed budget has been released, including over $12 million in reductions to Evergreen’s budget and authorization to raise tuition by 14%. It also includes the termination of the automatic COLA’s for PERS1 and TERS 1 retirees. For information about the impact of the proposed budget from the Washington Senate, please see the update on The Governmental Relations blog.
The House Budget proposal includes a number of reductions for Evergreen, including $10.38 million in reduced state funding, a $1.97 million dollar cut which reflects the proposed 3% salary reduction, and several other substantial cuts. Evergreen and the other regional colleges and universities would be authorized to raise tuition by 11.5 %.
One significant victory for higher education in this budget would be the $103.1 million increase in the State Need grant program.
For additional details, please see the comprehensive analysis on the Office of Government Relations page.
Please see Julie Garver’s Office of Governmental Relations Blog for an update about the House of Representatives’ proposed Operating and Capital Budgets.
As many of you already know, there has been some movement related to the development of the state’s budget in the last few days. The State House of Representatives is expected to release its proposed operating budget at 12:15 p.m. today and a public hearing is scheduled for 3:30. Although no time line has been announced for the release of the proposed capital budget, a public hearing is scheduled for 8:00 tomorrow morning. The Senate is expected to release its proposed budget next Monday.
Faculty and Staff Convocation will be happening from 11:30-1 in the CRC tomorrow (9/15). Since new employees (anyone hired since the last convocation) will be getting introduced to the college community at this event, I thought you’d like to have a little information about the new employees in FAD.
Corrina Barton
Corrina started working at the college back in March and is doing collections work in Student Accounts. She is a Washington native, born and raised.
Cedrus Fox-Dobbs
Cedrus is one of the college’s most recent hires as an ITS IV in Administrative Computing. He’s an Evergreen alumnus with strong ties to the Olympia Community.
Granado, Chris
Chris started work as the coordinator of the Client Services Help Desk back in March. Chris has been doing technical support work for 15 years and has worked for the University of Puget Sound, the Bellevue School District and Amazon.com. Chris is from Los Angeles, where he earned a BA in History at UCLA.
Patte King
Patte is the college’s Public Records Officer and works in the Office of the Vice President for Finance and Administration. Patte previously worked at the law offices of Kevin Johnson and as the Public Disclosure Officer for the Department of Social and Human Services – Access and Equal Opportunity.
Kathleen Morgan
Kat started work as the new Day Shift Supervisor for the Building Services crew back in January. Kat comes to the college with an extensive body of experience in building services work. She was a long-term employee of the Madigan Medical Center at Fort Lewis.
Valerie Piper
Valerie is another of the college’s most recently hired employees. She is the new Fiscal Technician for the Greener Store, coming to the college with experience at Soundview Advisors and Charles Schwab.
Christopher Sabatini
Christopher is the Greener Store’s new Office Supply Buyer. Christopher recently worked as a manager at the Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle.
Sharon Storer
Sharon started work as the Assistant Director for Human Resource Services back in February. Prior to coming to Evergreen she worked for the State of Washington for 34 years, most of which was spent working for DSHS.
Lois Strom
Lois has been working in Payroll & Benefits since January when she was hired to help out as the college moves towards the implementation of the new payroll system. Before coming to Evergreen, Lois worked for Aramark, Boeing and a small Washington casino.
Rick Wagner
Rick is the Project Manager for the Banner Human Resource Management System implementation project. He started work in Administrative Computing in December and the implementation of the new system is scheduled for January 2011.
Wendy Wang
Wendy has been working as a Human Resources Representative since January. She will be working on recruitment, HR Payroll, classified position allocation and other issues while staff in HR are working hard on Banner HR implementation. Before coming to Evergreen, Wendy was an HR specialist for General Electric in Shanghai, China.
Jamie Worley
Jamie took over as the Associate Director of Client Services when the Technical Support Services unit was reorganized earlier this year. Jamie came to us from the University of Portland where she most recently worked as the Assistant Director of Tech Support. Jamie is a true lover of the Pacific Northwest who is looking forward to spending time in the Olympics.
The March/April 2010 issue of Facilities Manager includes an article Rich Davis co-wrote with John Saidi, who is a senior fire protection engineer with the US Department of Energy. The article is entitled “Fire Pumps: Time to Change NFPA 25 Weekly Churn Testing.” NFPA 25 (National Fire Protection Association) requires weekly tests of fire pump assemblies without using water, referred to as “churn tests”. The article acknowledges some benefits to frequent testing, but argues that monthly testing is sufficient and that weekly testing tends to decrease the likelihood of the pumps starting properly when needed due to the wear and tear that these tests impose on the machinery. It also argues that this test frequency does not take into account the existence of redundant systems that increase reliabiltiy dramatically.
This article is Rich’s second as part of a continuing effort with a group working within APPA, an organization promoting leadership in facilities and providing training for those leaders and managers in facility organizations. Most of APPA’s members are colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. Evergreen has been a member for many years.
The Banner HR implementation project kick-off took place on January 19th in the Communications Building’s Recital Hall. The kick-off was well attended and started with brief introductions and a “how-we-got-here” overview by Aaron Powell, Director of Computing & Communications. Rick Wagner (TESC’s Project Manager for the project) continued the project overview by presenting the benefits of implementing Banner HR, along with a high-level schedule for the project and introduction of the key functional areas involved with the project. The remainder of the day was given over to the SunGard Higher Education’s (SGHE) consultant who presented additional information about both the project and the system in the morning and, then provided a system demonstration in the afternoon. In addition to a day for the project kick-off, both Wednesday and Thursday of that week were devoted to providing actual hands-on training to the key functional areas that will be the primary users of this Banner module.
Since the project kick-off in January, Admin Computing and the SGHE consultant have brought Banner HR up in our test instance and conducted three more 3-day training sessions involved with the implementation of the system. These training sessions are a large component of the project’s implementation approach and occur at once a month – sometimes twice a month. In between the roughly 18 training sessions, personnel from the key functional areas involved are responsible for completing “homework” assignments. This homework consists of putting together the information (for example, employee classes and positions, salary tables, payroll schedules, and leave/termination codes) that represents the building blocks required to construct the Banner HR system. The addition of Banner HR to the other Banner modules already in use by the college creates an enterprise-wide solution for Evergreen. By providing these tools, the administrative areas of the college can work together more efficiently and effectively in both defining as well as, meeting the objectives of the college. Currently, the project is on track to meet the go-live date of January 2011.
In December of 2009, Rick Wagner joined the Admin Computing Team in C&C as Project Manager for the Banner Human Resources Management System implementation project. Rick is a 30 year IT Professional and comes to Evergreen with more than a dozen years of experience working on HR/Payroll systems and projects. In accepting this position, he and his wife have relocated to Washington from Arizona and are truly enjoying the change in both geography and weather. He has not only assumed responsibility for the project but just as importantly, he has been able to integrate into the Evergreen culture quite nicely.
As we continue the process of developing cost savings to meet the requirements of the supplemental budget reductions for 2010-2011 and begin the process of developing a smaller budget for 2011-13, we will periodically post information on this blog about the progress we are making. In the meantime, an excellent source of information about the ongoing legislative budget process is the news blog for Evergreen’s Office of Governmental Relations, staffed by Director Julie Suchanek and Legislative Assistant Kelly Norman. Recent stories include information on proposed amendments to the operating budget being worked on in the House Ways and Means Committee and an analysis of the respective revenue packages proposed by the Governor and the Senate.
Here’s the link to the Government Relations blog:
http://blogs.evergreen.edu/officeofgovernmentalrelations/
Stay tuned. We’ll share information as it becomes available.
The Photovoltaic (PV) Array was installed on the roof of the Library Building in spring of 2009. The array (actually 2 arrays of 22 solar panels each) is estimated to produce approximately 10,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year. The arrays are oriented and tilted to the south to permit the panels the best access to the sun. The funding for the project was provided by the state Office of Financial Management (OFM) and the College’s Clean Energy Committee.
The link below gives access to the “Sunny Boy Portal.” The portal yields data about the amount of carbon dioxide avoided in grams, revenue to the college in U.S. Dollars, year to date energy usage by month and an hour by hour profile of average energy and power.
http://www.sunnyportal.com/Templates/PublicPage.aspx?page=6abd6a91-de19-4958-86f3-c69d40821c0e
Howard Cobiskey has joined the team in Business Services as a Fiscal Technician III in the Bookstore. Howard is originally from Chicago and holds Bachelor of Science degrees in Mathematics and Economics from Northeastern Illinois University. His primary background is in Statistical Data Programming for the market research industry. Howard’s been married for ten years and has been playing electric guitar for 20. Please join us in welcoming Howard to Finance and Administration.