Minutes from All Staff Meeting 8/21/08

Budget
Gary went over the budget and the College of Medicine’s proposal for handling the budget cut from the Legislature. Noting nothing is set in stone and the Interim Dean plans to assess each departments needs before a final decision will be made, we expect this to be sometime in September. The following was written on the white board.

College of Medicine Base $52,890,859
Reduction $1,848,500 = 3.49%
Phoenix Base $11,397,348
Reduction $458,200 = 4.02%

In addition to the budget cut President Shelton changed the percentage of Indirect Cost fees returned to the researcher/department to 25%, down from 30% in prior years, which severely affects the College of Medicine budget and their ability subsidize the cuts.

We’ve been told to expect between 3.3 and 5.5% cut; using our current budget figures the amount will be between $56,581 - $94,302. Gary expects we will be towards the higher end of the scale, although he has been lobbying for a smaller cut, however this is a large overall cut and we will be contributing.

We have three pots of state dollars to work with:
Operations
$ for supplies, toner, phones, printing, postage, copies, travel etc. We cut this every year, can try to be more frugal here
Salaries
Unspent salary dollars
Collections
Gary will try to protect this as much as possible but we may have to take a cut here this year. However, we may have other money from the student fee to take up some of the slack.

Administration
Dr. William Crist will be starting on November 3; everything else is speculation. His office will probably be on the 2nd floor glass bridge in the Drachman building. The search for Deans for COM Tucson & Phoenix will get underway immediately upon his arrival. He is going to spend half his time in Phoenix and half in Tucson; he will have a driver so he can work in the back seat while in transit.


Space
3rd floor photocopy room has been converted into a large group study room; we are waiting for paint and installation of a white board.

Gary has asked Javad to coordinate transforming the south end of the 4th floor into a study friendly atmosphere. He will be moving several study carrels, tables and chairs from the area underneath the interior staircase to the fourth floor.

Jeanette asked if some of the soft furniture could be moved up to the 4th floor as well. Keeping in mind that during the months of February through April we will be hosting the exhibit “Changing the faces of Medicine” in the coffee bar area and those chairs will need to be moved anyway.
Pat asked if the white noise could be permanently turned off. Last week Gary unplugged all of the machines, but within a few days some were on again. This may not be something we can solve until the dividers are permanently removed, which is in negotiation. Dr. Malan suggested that the Library and Facilities get together and brainstorm.

Office moves are on hold; Gary is negotiating with facilities and Information Technology Services. This brought up the question about who is going to fund new laptops in the classrooms and computing expenses in general. Since the college is trying to handle the budget cut, departments don’t know what their final budget will be including COM IT. Once they are given a budget we should have a better idea of who will be responsible for our computing needs.

Digital Commons
Gary met with Carla to discuss the Main Library Digital Commons (PCMS files) and AHSL sharing their software and servers. Carla agreed and we hope to have our first project online soon.

AZHIN
A search is underway for an AZHIN funded librarian to support education and training for AZHIN members, especially those without a librarian on staff.

AHSL History
Jacque is writing the library’s history from where Tom Higdon left off in 1984. She is interested in photos or documents that might help her. She will scan the photos if the are not in digital format. Gary and Jeanette have been using annual reports to record our accomplishments. Jacque has these and can incorporate into her report any pertinent information.