OS Council Elects New Representatives
By Jody Record, Campus Journal Editor
April 21, 2010
Theresa Faist and Lisa Canfield have been elected to the OS Council, replacing
Patrice MacNevin and Lisa Wilder, respectively. Their appointments were confirmed at the regular monthly meeting in April. A list of council representatives and their districts can be found at http://www.unh.edu/os-council/representatives.html.
A discussion by the council on proposed benefit changes under consideration by the System Personnel Policies Council concluded a priority of those benefits can’t be made until it is clear which of them remain on the table. And that won’t be known until the USNH board of trustees has finished its review of the Mercer report, which was done earlier this year to help trustees evaluate existing employee benefits.
Four representatives from Mercer attended the March 29 board of trustees meeting in Concord to present the report’s findings and answer questions. Representatives from the employee councils of all USNH’s universities and colleges were present as were heads of their respective human resource departments.
The report concluded that, overall, USNH’s offerings are competitive with the market median (+/- within 10 percent).
Mercer met with members of the board of trustees in January to discuss the rising and unsustainable costs facing the university system. Challenges include state funding; a decline in the demographics of traditional college students; increased financial pressures on students and their families; nearly $1 billion in deferred maintenance costs on USNH properties; and the lack of substantial endowments and a traditional advancement at the universities and colleges.
Steps that have been taken to help contain costs include freezing salaries and increasing employee contributions to health insurance premiums.
The next meeting of the OS Council will be May 12 at 1 p.m. in the board of trustees conference room at Thompson Hall.
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