NEWS
- University preparing for 2008 budget cuts Tami Livingston
- Same-sex partners win university benefits Tami Livingston
- Kernan-Beach project to finish in 2009 Laura A. Hyman
- New Associate Provost keeps school running behind the scenes
- UNF staff salaries rank among lowest in university system Ross Brooks
- Farewell old booth
- Ospreys meet with federal government Tami Livingston
- Coffee with the Presidents
- Town Center restaurants come up short in recent health inspections Holli Welch
- Greek dance marathon raises money for kids Tami Livingston
University preparing for 2008 budget cuts
Budgets cuts have ruled the State University System this year - and next year isn't looking any better, according to recent estimates by legislative
officials.
The state conducted a revenue estimating conference Nov. 14 to update this year's budget and forecast coming years'
as well.
In a Nov. 16 e-mail to the Board of Governors, university presidents, and trustees, Chancellor Mark Rosenberg said the revenue available for the 2007-2008 fiscal year has been reduced by another billion dollars from the August estimates, bringing the total to only $29.5 billion.
This roughly equals another 4 percent cut, and the Legislature is expecting to be $1 billion short due to expected expenditures.
Because of the current economic situation, Rosenberg said officials are expecting to be short $1 billion in the 2008-2009 year if the expected expenditures are the same as in 2007-2008.
Added to that, additional cuts to other legislature-funded entities are expected, which could lead to a total cut of $2 billion.
"The State University System must begin preparing for another round of significant belt-tightening as we enter the 2008 legislative season," the e-mail said. "Many of you have been anticipating this, but I believe that the level of cutbacks may be greater then we anticipated."
Despite this news, UNF President John Delaney believes that the university will be able to pull through without any major problems.
"We're really preparing already for next year's budget, thinking we're likely to have less money next year than we do this year," he said.
To combat that, Delaney said university officials are working to find ways to save money.Currently the plan includes not filling positions when someone retires or leaves unless it's absolutely necessary.
Delaney said the school is hoping to save hundreds of thousands of dollars by finding ways to cut the university's utility bill and has begun installing energy-saving sensors and valves around campus.
The travel budgets for many university departments have been cut to save money, but so far cuts to faculty travel budgets have been avoided.
"We've got to find ways to get some more costs to cut out, and we're trying to work through that," Delaney said. "We're trying to make it so it doesn't affect faculty and students. In all likelihood we'll get it through lapses ... Things will turn up in another year, year and a half and we'll get back on track."
While Delaney remains optimistic, he said the university community needs to be aware that some major cuts are
possible.
"I think we can manage it here," he said. "Now if they cut $2 billion or $1.5 billion out of the state budget, then that's a real problem. That's a real serious problem. At the end of the day, we'll balance the budget because we have to."
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Same-sex partners win university benefits
Same-sex domestic partners of UNF employees are now able to claim some of the university benefits offered to married couples.
The university announced the creation of a registry for same-sex domestic partnerships Nov. 9, which allows eligible individuals to register their partners to receive benefits including tuition reimbursement, use of campus amenities, and consideration as "immediate family" for the purposes of sick leave and other perks.
"It's such a strong statement from the university to the community that they are really working towards an equal campus
for all people," said Emily Rokosch, coordinator for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Resource Center.
Rokosch and her partner are currently in the process of registering for the benefits with Human Resources.
"It's a really nice option to have," she said.
Rokosch said the new registry not only provides support for current employees but also improves the university's image as a whole.
Greg Catron, assistant director for employee and labor relations, agrees.
"It puts us in a favorable light by attracting and maintaining staff and faculty members," Catron said.
The current benefit offerings were modeled after other Florida university domestic partnership policies.
"There is a wide range of policies at the universities," Catron said. "We're right in the middle. Hopefully this is a first step and we can add [more benefits] in the future."
Vice President Tom Serwatka said the new registry is something the university has been working on for a while, and he's glad to have university support behind it.
Serwatka and his partner were the first couple to register. The university also recently took another step for equality on campus when it added sexual orientation to its nondiscrimination policy in Oct. 2006.
"The progress UNF has made for the
LGBT students, faculty and staff is amazing," Rokosch said.
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Kernan-Beach project to finish in 2009
The overpass that will take Kernan Boulevard over Beach Boulevard and eliminate traffic lights is on track to be completed in early 2009.
The Jacksonville Transit Authority is building the overpass because regional and local traffic studies indicated it will allow smoother traffic flow through the intersection and improve safety, said Wendy Morrow, JTA manager of external affairs.
Construction began in March 2007 and is about 20 percent complete, according to JTA's Web site. Currently, utility relocations and storm drainage construction is underway. The entire project will have an estimated total cost of $43 million.
"The project is a design-build project where the final design and construction occur simultaneously," Morrow said. "This allows for economies of scale in the field and a quicker project on the ground."
In April 2004, the Jacksonville City Council passed an ordinance to provide funding for
an interchange at the intersection of Beach Boulevard and Kernan Boulevard.
Planning for the project began June 2004, and JTA awarded the contract to Superior Construction in December 2006, Morrow said.
The decision to build the overpass over Beach Boulevard instead of having the road go over Kernan Boulevard was made because most traffic passing through the intersection does so on Kernan Boulevard through Beach Boulevard, said Richard Clark, councilmember for District 3, where the intersection
is located.
In 2005, there were about 60,000 cars traveling on Kernan Boulevard on an average day. By 2025, that number is predicted to grow to more than 97,000, according to a JTA traffic study.
With UNF growing and a new high school proposed for the south end of John Turner Butler Boulevard, the overpass just makes sense, Clark said.
Despite ongoing progress, there are some regular commuters who say the construction isn't moving along fast enough.
"I'm ready for this construction to be done," said Jessica Bellamy, a junior English major who lives off Kernan Boulevard.
"I know it'll be really nice when it's done, but now it seems like a really
big mess."
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New Associate Provost keeps school running behind the scenes
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The Spinnaker sat down with Associate Provost Douglas Eder to ask him a few questions about his
role at UNF and how he's adjusting to Florida since joining the staff in July.
What did you do before coming to UNF?
I had a 31-year career at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville in the biology area - specifically biomedicine, biophysics, neuroscience. And after 31 years, it was appropriate to move on.
My last 12 years the at SIUE had been as director of assessment, which is the business of asking the question, "Are we doing at the university what we say we're doing - what we should be doing?"
What do you like about UNF?
I think we have a match. There's all kinds of interesting challenges here - lots to do - and one of the nice things about UNF is that from what I've found, ideas are respected. Not so much one's title, but the ideas that one has.
That's a pretty nice thing for a university to be: a place where
ideas flourish regardless of who offers them. I found that to be very
invitational.
Do you have any goals for the next year?
My first personal goal is to listen and find out what it is that the
people that have been here want this place to accomplish.
As the new person coming in, what I want to hear and learn is
what people think matters here and help them accomplish it.
What do you think of Florida so far?
I'm a Seminole from way back, and so I'm back in the latitude I really like. My wife and I got married in Florida. My children were born in Florida. So it's like coming home - this is home.
What are some of the things you do on a daily basis?
The primary everyday thing is the university is now facing its decennial
reaccreditation from the South Association of Colleges and Schools.
Regional accreditors right now are very interested in working with the universities and colleges they represent to basically show where the money that is being spent at the state and federal level is going.
My portfolio is to ask that question throughout the entire institution and help the provost and the president marshall the resources of our
reasoned faculty to answer that question.
What should the university community know about you?
I don't look at myself as someone who should be known. If I do my job right, the things that I do are institutionalized, and other people adopt them and behave to those principles because it's the right thing to do.
They don't even know that I'm there.
I'm not convinced that people need to know anything about me, except that the provost's office is one of great integrity. If they know that, I think that's sufficient.
Compiled by Tami Livingston
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UNF staff salaries rank among lowest in university system
UNF staff members are among the lowest paid in the 11-school State University System, according to Mike Trotter, president
of UNF's university support personnel staff.
More than 1,000 staff workers account for the majority of the names on UNF's payroll. This large group if further divided into two classes: university support personnel staff workers and administrative and professional workers.
The 535 USPS workers run the gamut from entry-level groundskeepers to senior secretaries, whereas the 500 university A&P employees tend to work as coordinators, advisers and program directors. The highest paid A&P director makes $116,355 per year, while the lowest paid A&P employee earns $10,000. The average yearly A&P salary is
nearly $32,000.
Compared to their A&P counterparts, USPS workers make less. On average, USPS earn an average yearly paycheck of about $18,000. The highest paid earns $40,792, while the lowest paid
makes $10,000.
"If you talk to anybody out here - if you ask them if they could change one thing - salaries would be it," Trotter said.
During a school year in which budgets have already been cut, Trotter said the university would have to find means other than state assistance to address the
salary issue.
"The legislature isn't helping any," he said.
"I think the salary issue is a travesty," Linda Howell, office manager for the English department, said. "There have been efforts by the administration to rectify the problem, but I think from my end there seems to be a constant de-prioritization of support staff concerns," she said.
While the university has grown, responsibilities for staff have
also grown.
The problem is staff salaries have not shown this growth, Howell said.
"While there's been much discussion about faculty salaries, there hasn't really been that much discussion about support staff salaries," she said.
Howell said that in May 2006 a Position Description Questionnaire was handed out to each support staff employee.
The PDQ was billed as a means of re-defining position titles which could then be evaluated against market salaries outside of
the university.
"It's been a few years since we filled it [PDQs] out, and we don't hear too much about it, so a lot of people get impatient about it," Trotter said.
"It has been an issue of frustration for a lot of people, myself included," Howell said.
President John Delaney said the university is in the process of working up a response to the PDQs.
"We're trying to realign jobs, workload and pay. That is a
process that takes time,"
Delaney said.
A phone call and e-mail to Rachelle Gottlieb, vice president of human resources, to find out when results from the PDQ's could be expected were
not returned.
The lack of merit-based pay increase also stands as a source of discord for support staff, said Thelma Young, former executive secretary to the dean in the College of Arts and Sciences.
"My dissatisfaction comes in that we are not fairly compensated for the work that we do,"
Young said.
A university employee for nine years, Young is the author of one novel, "The Stories My Foremothers Told Me," and has a second book about children who survived hurricane Katrina
in progress.
Young decided to leave UNF during the fall 2007 semester after she brought a written job offer from another company to the university.
According to UNF policy, support staff may bring in salary offers that the university can then decide to match in terms of salary.
"In my case they told me no," Young said.
"At that point, I was determined to leave, because to me that spoke volumes," she said. "You should recognize what I'm worth without me having to
tell you."
Faced with leaving a job she had worked at for nine years, Young said it would be tough, but would be the right choice.
"It's going to be a sad day for me personally when I leave, just because of all the great people I've met. But those people can't pay my bills," she said.
Young took a job at the Florida Coastal School o f Law as a faculty assistant. Young said that her decision to leave was not based on an increase in pay, but "the knowledge that I can be compensated based on my job performance in the future."
Young is representative of a growing number of staff who have become impatient in waiting for change to take place in the university's treatment of
its staff.
With budget cuts forestalling any chance of a salary increase, Delaney closed the university for an extra three days during the winter holiday to help
boost morale.
"The employees have worked so hard, and to not have a pay increase, this seemed like a great gesture of thanks for the employees," he said.
Delaney also said bringing the salaries of those individuals up is "our number one priority for
next year."
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Farewell old booth
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Ospreys meet with federal government
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A group of UNF students spent Nov. 15-17 touring Washington D.C. and lobbying for nuclear nonproliferation to high-ranking government officials.
Between visits to the White House, the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress, the Capitol building and other Washington monuments, 22 students from Dr. Nancy Soderberg's Real World Power and the Superpower Myth class met with Deputy National Security Advisor Jim Jeffrey, Acting Principal Deputy Director of the Policy Planning Staff for the State Department Ed Lacey, and Gen. Walter Sharp, director of the joint staff for the White House, among others.
"Essentially, I wanted to expose UNF students to the real world of policy making," Soderberg said.
Soderberg has been in politics for more than 20 years and is
a former third-ranking National Security Council official under Bill Clinton. She said she used her contacts in Washington to set up the trip for her students. She
is a distinguished visiting scholar at UNF.
In order to bring current
politics into the classroom, Soderberg had the class come up with timely political topics it would like to study. The class then narrowed down the subject to nuclear nonproliferation and each student wrote a paper on the subject. The class chose four main
issues related to nonproliferation, and the students spoke with the officials in Washington.
"They sat in, they took in what we were talking about and really seemed like they were taking in our suggestions," said Brittany Lara, a senior communications major.
"This was a great opportunity for students to see that
these are nice, normal people in government just like them," Soderberg said.
"Within those two days, I got more exposure to how D.C. works than I could've gotten in a semester," said Kevin Easdale, a junior political science major.
A Transformational Learning Opportunity grant funded this trip, and Soderberg said she is working on finding funding for a possible trip in the spring for the new class.
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Coffee with the Presidents
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Town Center restaurants come up short in recent health inspections
The most recent health and safety inspections for Maggiano's Little Italy, Mimi's Cafe, Qdoba Mexican Grill, Chick-Fil-A and Wendy's in the St. Johns Town Center each revealed numerous critical violations.
The reports, filed between July and September, cited problems such as incorrect refrigeration and storage, soil buildup, and incorrect date labeling.
Each restaurant was reported as addressing each violation on the spot.
"We fix the problem immediately, right in front of the inspector," said Margaret Hartley, Mimi's Cafe general manager. "If there is a bigger problem, we'll call for repairs that day. It is immediate."
The five were not the only restaurants inspected during that time. The Department of Business and Professional Regulation inspected 110,409 Florida public food services and lodging establishments in the past year.
DBPR spokeswoman Mary Alford said community health is the key concern when it comes to restaurant safety.
"Our goal is to license efficiently and regulate fairly," Alford said. "It's not a pass-or-fail relationship, but rather the treatment of potential threats to harm
the public."
During inspections, the DBPR looks at more than 50 different areas of each restaurant, from food time and temperature to staff knowledge and training. In every area, inspectors record both critical and noncritical violations if issues arise, Alford said.
She said critical violations relate directly to potential food-borne illness risks, while noncritical citations are disruptions in procedures that ensure a safe environment. If uncorrected, noncritical violations can lead to the development of a critical one, Alford said.
In a September inspection, Chick-Fil-A was cited for having grease stuck to clean dishware and utensils - a noncritical violation. Owner Jeff Bucy said this was an area his store is working on to guarantee it doesn't lead to anything major.
"Unfortunately, it happens," he said. "As perfect as we want it to be, it's a daily mindset of the leadership to stay on top of every situation and make sure employees understand the reasoning behind procedures."
Along with the minor violation, Chick-Fil-A was cited for not maintaining proper food storage temperatures, having soiled material on the lemon slicer, storing food on the floor, and storing flammable material around the water heater - all critical violations, according to the September report.
Critical violations reported against the other restaurants showed similar problems.
An August inspection reported Maggiano's Little Italy maintained food at improper temperatures, had soil buildup in the interior of its ice bin and machine, and soiled material on the vegetable slicer. Qdoba's food storage temperatures were a problem as well, along with a fire extinguisher without an approved tag, according to an August inspection report.
A July inspection for Wendy's cited soil buildup inside ice bins, unlabeled spray bottles, and ready-to-eat food not properly dated after opening.
An inspection at Mimi's Cafe also reported critical violations for soil buildup, but in cooler gaskets. The report cited a bug attractor installed over the food prep area as well.
Despite the violations, Hartley said her restaurant still aims to meet regulations, even when inspectors are not present.
"It is an overall picture, not just one or two steps to ensure we always meet regulations," she said. "There are rules and policies in place for safety and sanitation to keep clean no matter if they [inspectors] come
or not."
Critical violations
Maggiano's Little Italy
- Food at improper temperatures
- Soil buildup in interior of ice machine
- Soiled material on vegetable slicer
Mimi's Cafe
- Soil buildup in cooler gaskets
- Bug attractor installed above food prep area
Qdoba Mexican Grill
- Food at improper temperatures
- Fire extinguisher without an approved tag
Chick-Fil-A
- Food at improper temperatures
- Soiled material on lemon slicer
- Storing food on the floor and flammable materials around water heater
Wendy's
- Soil buildup inside ice bins
- Unlabeled spray bottles
- Ready-to-eat food not properly labeled
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Greek dance marathon raises money for kids
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"Summer lovin', had me a blast. Summer lovin' happened so fast."
These words blast out of the speakers as more than 60 girls sing them outloud and dance along.
This is the scene at the beginning of the Panhellenic Council's Dance Marathon 2007, hosted overnight Nov.17.
The 12-hour marathon began at 9 p.m. and ended at 9 a.m. the next morning. It served as a fundraiser for the Children's Miracle Network.
Girls from numerous sororities danced the night away to classics like "Cha Cha Slide," "Eye of the Tiger," the soundtrack from the movie "Grease," and more.
Children who have been helped by the Children's Miracle Network also danced at the beginning of the night.
Calls to determine the total amount raised were not returned before publication. Greek Life is planning to host the event again next year.
The Spinnaker spoke with three participants throughout the event about how they were doing. Here's what they said:
 Jenna Sitzer Junior, Alpha Chi Omega |
 Meghan Bender Junior, Kappa Delta |
 Nicole Finkel Sophomore, Kappa Alpha Theta |
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| 9:15 p.m. | |||
| "I feel excited that we get to do something with children like this, the energy is really great." | "I'm feeling great. Very energetic." | "I'm ready to dance all night." | |
| 1 a.m. | |||
| "I'm good. My back hurts." | "My legs are a little sore and I'm running out of moves, but it's fine." | "I'm wide awake and teaching people how to do a Rubix Cube." | |
| 8:40 a.m. | |||
| "Every minute [toward the end] felt like forever, but it was a lot - a lot - of fun." | Unavailable | "I'm going delirious, and all I want is my bed." | |
Compiled by Tami Livingston
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