The recently created University of California President’s Post-Employment Benefit Task Force held a forum on Monday with UCLA faculty, administrators, staff members and retirees to inform and discuss possible changes in post-employee benefits.
The current benefit and health plan that is offered to UC employees is expected to increase in cost in upcoming years, and the task force was created by UC President Mark Yudof to evaluate the plan and discuss long-term options.
The goal of the task force is to ensure that the UC continues the traditional competitive hiring and retention rates within the UC system and maintains an adequate plan for current staff members and retirees, according to the University of California Web site.
“UCLA has been very good at recruiting the best and keeping the best, and one component is salary and another is benefits. Salaries are poor in comparison to comparators, but our benefits are still competitive with comparators,” said Shane White, a professor of dentistry and a member of the pension work group. “If we lose competitive benefits, we will lose the employees that drive the university. The university is about having great faculty so we can have great students.”
The force is composed of four groups: steering, pensions, retirees and finances, each comprised of administrators and appointed faculty from the senate representing a number of UC campuses.
The forum was part of a series throughout the UC system for the purpose of informing and communicating with staff. White said the task force is currently in its assessment stage and is scheduled to have a plan drafted by the summer of 2010.
“They pretty much framed what the issues are with the retirement system. It was mostly an information meeting to talk about the issues and the steps they are going to take. Any change to retirement benefits (is) concern to any UCLA staff member,” said Maureen Wadleigh, president of the Staff Assembly, an organization of staff created to encourage communication and community among members.
“The ability for staff to ask questions is really important and I think that will continue to be very important as we figure out what to do in future,” she added, saying that she thought the meeting went very well, with approximately 200 staff members and retirees in attendance.
Judith Sperling, assistant director of risk management, training and development in UCLA Recreation said she thought the forum was very informative and helpful, as she knew almost nothing about the potential changes in benefits prior to the meeting.
“I’m approaching retirement and wanted to make sure there are no sweeping changes I needed to know about,” she said. “I was glad to see that they’re reaching out to faculty and staff to get feedback from us and find out if we have concerns.”
Though it is uncertain what changes will be made, Gerard Au, president-elect of the Staff Assembly, said that change will more than likely come this April with the re-implementation of staff contributions to the retirement program.
The contributions were ended nearly 20 years ago, as the program was over-funded, he added. About 20 percent of the staff is composed of long term employees, who contributed in the past, but the majority have not, Au said.
“To (long-term employees), it may not be a new thing, (because they) just had (a) 20-year vacation (from paying fees); but for employees who started within the UC in the past 20 years, it could potentially be seen as another sort of cut or decrease in pay,” he said.
White said he thought the sentiment throughout the three forums was “resignation that the university is facing some serious financial problems.”
“These are things that have to be implemented to keep the retirement system healthy and comparable to what you would expect UC retirement should be. A lot of staff see it as necessary steps to keep it healthy, but on the other hand, for newer staff, it’s something they haven’t seen before,” Au said.
Wadleigh said a follow-up meeting will be held by the task force spring quarter to discuss staff input on the changes, though Au said he believes they will not be implemented for at least a year.