Faculty Council

Retirement and Fringe Benefits Committee

Meeting Minutes

Sept. 30, 2002, 1:00pm

Student Union, Case Study 2

Attending: Sally Henderson, Brad Bays, Jean Van Delinder, Tim Ireland, Lionel Raff, Jan Carlson

Not Attending: Roy Achemire

The meeting was called to order by Sally Henderson at 1:00. The agenda and support documents were distributed.

Continuing from the Sept. 23 meeting discussion concerning the OU/Schaller-Anderson Health Care(SA) plan, the following concerns arose:

1. Dr. Raff reported that he had found the providers specifically listed as PCP's for this plan to be primarily in the Norman area but that the list of providers with PPOK was extensive and widespread. He posed the question to Dr. Henderson as to whether the PPOK providers were all also SA providers. Dr. Henderson stated that she presumed so, but would check with appropriate sources for a clear answer.

2. Dr. Raff also was interested to know how SA can afford to offer their plan at its present cost and how their fiscal structure permits this. Discussion ensued. Dr. Henderson will find this answer also.

3. Dr. Raff was concerned whether, if this plan was adopted as an option for OSU, pre-existing conditions would be covered. It was generally agreed that this would be a requirement for consideration as an alternative by OSU.

4. Dr. Henderson wondered whether changing to the SA plan would eliminate the option of Health Choice dental coverage. Does the HC dental coverage require the individual to also have HC medical benefits? She will also check on this.

Brad Bays and Tim Ireland both expressed a desire to have Anne Matoy (or Barbara Wells) come to the next meeting and provide the HR perspective on the SA plan.

Dr. Raff suggested that, after all of the above concerns were addressed, if the committee felt favorably about the plan, the committee recommend to Faculty Council that a resolution be adopted to add the SA plan to the list of options for health care benefits for OSU employees/families.

Other benefit options were discussed:

Sally Henderson provided the members an excerpt from the university wide R&FB committee minutes concerning 457(b) tax sheltered savings. She indicated that that committee was planning to recommend that OSU make this plan available to its employees. She suggested that this committee support the recommendation.

The several other benefit considerations in Staff Council and the univ. wide R&FB were again mentioned by Dr. Henderson as topics to further investigate, support, etc.

Jan Carlson added that he would like to see the campus offer the educational opportunity of GED studies to interested staff, with time off and location on campus. He agreed that this should be suggested to Staff Council for their consideration. Dr. Henderson added that another program for consideration might be Conversational English.

Brad Bays added that a benefit which should be considered was tuition break/waiver for children of faculty. Dr. Henderson asked whether he could research the topic and provide a list of regional universities which offer this benefit. He agreed to do so.

The meeting was adjourned at 2:15.

Respectfully submitted Oct 1, 2002

Sally Henderson