Review Committee Minutes
February 21, 2018
9:30 am
Present: G. Barabino, D. Cintrón, M. Driscoll, K. Foster, G. Gebert, D. Jeruzalmi, G. Johnson, E. Koch, F. Lam, T. Liss, C. Lloyd, R. Menon, J. Mercado, D. Mozeleski, G. Murphy, J. Siderakis, C. Stewart, M. Strzeszewski, W. Thornton, L. Zinnanti
Excused: M. Baptiste, M. Brownlee, K. Ihrer, P. Occhiogrosso, D. Robinson, A. Undieh, K. Witherspoon
Guests: Z. Matos-Nieves, T. Scala
- Minutes
The Minutes of the meeting of September 13, 2017 were approved as submitted.
- Provost’s Presentation and Discussion
Interim Provost Driscoll commenced the meeting at 9:35 am and proceeded with a presentation as follows:
- Review of the charge of the Review Committee as per article V of the CCNY Governance Plan. In addition to personnel recommendations, the RC is also charged with making recommendations to the President on “proposals and policies having budgetary implications.” In accordance with the Governance Plan and in response to President Boudreau’s recent request, the Review Committee will occupy itself with this part of its charge more regularly. In particular, the President has asked for recommendations from the RC for policies and processes to determine budget decisions in the context of the present fiscal deficit. Discussions with CUNY about a remediation plan for the College are contingent upon the College providing a plan that will ensure a target of attrition savings in our budget planning going forward.
- Interim Provost Driscoll provided context by reviewing FY18 budgeting assumptions including the PS snapshot take in March 2018, which determined anticipated attrition savings for FY18 and initiated the hiring pause. A number of subsequent hires, of both faculty and staff, have gone forward since the pause, based on prior commitment or the scale of risk to the College posed by unfilled vacancies. The result of these priority hires exceeded the anticipated attrition savings.
- In response to the President’s charge, the Provost asked the committee for input on what criteria should be applied, particularly in the short term, for exceptional hires that would still allow the College to realize the required attrition savings. Possible criteria and strategies debated included required savings in HEO replacements, replacements of more HEO vacancies with Gittelson staff, pooling of HEO functions, incorporating a review of center and institutes budgets, and greater short-term reliance upon assistant staff. The general consensus was that these and other strategies would be cumbersome to require across the board, and that it may be more feasible for each school/division to be assigned a portion of the target cut with discretion as to the means for implementing the cut. However, the committee felt that further discussion would require more concrete information about the target cut and the remediation process. In light of the short time frame to begin FY19 budget planning, the Provost called for another meeting of the full Review Committee on March 7, to be followed by a P&B meeting on personnel actions on regular (non-competitive) fellowship leaves and first-year re-appointments. An additional March meeting may be added.
- Adjournment of Meeting
The meeting was adjourned at 11:10 am.
Respectfully submitted,
Mary Ruth Strzeszewski
Secretary to the College-wide Review Committee
Last Updated: 08/07/2018 09:01