Davis Faculty Association

UCOP continues to make changes to our benefits programs. See the notice below that was received by CUCFA.

Begin forwarded message:

Re: Administration of Flexible Spending Accounts and COBRA  Administration.

For your information, the University of California is assessing proposals from potential vendors for the administration  of its employee Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) Program for health  (HCRA) and dependent care (DepCare) as well as COBRA continuation  for all UC health plans. The University is reassessing its COBRA  process with an eye towards facilitating efficiency and compliance  by consolidating the carrier administration under a single vendor.  The effective date for implementation of administrative services is  expected to be January 1, 2009 for SFA plans and May 1, 2009 for  COBRA. If you have any questions, please contact your University  representative for your bargaining unit.

Earlier this year the DFA and CUCFA (Council of UC Faculty Associations) apprised President Yudof of our concerns about the proposed changes to management of the UC natural reserve system. CUCFA sent him a letter expressing our concerns. We have received a brief reply that is described below.

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Date: August 5, 2008 11:46:13 AM PDT
Subject: Re: CUCFA letter to Yudof on NRS

We received a short thank you letter from Yudof, stating that he  “will keep the comments of both CUCFA and the NRS Advisory Council  in mind as I review the reorganization efforts and as I learn more  about how the different elements of the Office of the President  contribute to the success of the University.”

You may be interested in the Business Week article below about corporatization of higher ed, which includes commentary from UC BerkeleyChancellor Birgeneau.  The article is available at http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/jul2008/bs20080717_076555.htm

by Terence Murphy, DFA Board member

You probably received the e-missive from Office of the President on the comparison of the 2006 and 2007 budgets.  I thought that the analysis was incomplete, not including the relative increases in the various pay categories, so I calculated them.  You may not be surprised by the categories with the greatest increases (were you expecting it to be the teaching faculty?).  Note that you can’t tell to what extent the increases represent numbers of persons or pay rates per person.

The original table is available at:
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/compensation/payroll2007/table1.pdf

UC has issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) that asks for bids to manage our Defined Benefits program. This has been managed up until now from UCOP in Oakland. It indicates that privatization of the functions of UCOP continues. The RFP can be found at

http://www.ucop.edu/purchserv/rfp/hrbdba/hrbdba_rfp.pdf

and the associated web site is at

http://www.ucop.edu/purchserv/rfp/welcome.html