Members of the Davis Faculty Association should be aware of an ongoing issue regarding funding to support healthcare and retirement counseling programs on this campus.
The basic facts of the current situation are as follows. The Office of the President has cut central funding for the healthcare facilitator program, leaving it up to individual campuses to make their own decisions about funding for the program. The healthcare facilitator program is housed in Human Resources at UC Davis. Healthcare facilitators on our campus have in the past provided valuable assistance to faculty and employees in negotiating health care issues with insurance companies and providers. Some DFA members have in the past personally benefited from this personal one-on-one assistance.
On other campuses, various changes are looming as a result of the cuts. For example, UCSF has decided to fund its own program and retain its own facilitator to serve their employees, but possibly not their retirees. By contrast, UC Riverside is in process of closing its benefits office entirely. Here at UC Davis, the Human Resources department is being reviewed by external consultants at the request of the Chancellor. The staff in HR are very worried about funding for the healthcare facilitator program and for retirement counseling services as well. The Davis benefits office now has only two retirement analysts because vacancies have not been filled. It is possible that this office could be closed completely and our members would have to deal with unknown individuals on the phone at a central facility for help with retirement planning and with healthcare issues – not an ideal way to handle complex health and retirement issues.
The Academic Senate is aware of the problem; Faculty Welfare has created a task force under the direction of Prof. Robert May of Linguistics to come up with recommendations. The DFA is tracking developments in this issue and will keep members informed when further news is available.
As the campus considers cuts to a program that serves the faculty and staff at a very personal level, it is worth pointing out that the UC system now employs more administrators than faculty (see http://keepcaliforniaspromise.org/2001/ucs-administrators-crossed-the-line). At Davis, Senior Administrator FTE has grown 1.5% and Academic Administrators (this includes reclassifications of staff) have grown by 27.1%, while faculty FTE have declined by 5.6% between October 2009 and April 2012 (the latest available).