1. Call to Order

Quorum was achieved, with 49 members in attendance (including Burnaby, Surrey and Vancouver campuses). Two in Vancouver.

2. Approval of Agenda

Moved by David Agosti, seconded by Diane Mar-Nicolle. Motion Carried.

3. Approval of 2017 AGM Minutes

Moved by Jo-Anne Ray, seconded by Jeff Bryer. Motion carried.

4. President’s Report

Wanda Dekleva presented an overview of her report which can be found in full here:

The focus of 2018 has been on negotiations.

In the last round of Salary & Benefits negotiations, the Colin Taylor Award established a Joint Compensation Review Committee. The Mandate of the committee was to consider and make recommendations towards the development and implementation of a Total Compensation Package. To support the work of the committee, additional funds were made available.

After a lengthy negotiation process, APSA was able to convince the University to move forward with a long-awaited market survey. The survey went out this year and we are hopeful to share the results with our members in 2019. In addition, we were able to use some of the funds to negotiated benefits improvements, which will come into effect on Jan 1st, 2019 as well as a one-time lump sum payment to members.

APSA has also been involved in pension negotiations for the past several years, with 2018 finally bringing the negotiations to completion. The APSA Board is fully supportive of the proposed changes as we believe these changes provide a better benefit for our members. Voting opens tomorrow (November 30) at 12:01 am and is open until Dec 5th at 1:30 pm. We encourage everyone to vote “Yes”

It has also been a year of change in the APSA Office.

Our Program Assistant, Angela Vass, returned from maternity leave in January. Kelsey Newsham, our Communications Coordinator left in July and her replacement, Lakshmi Gosyne, started in the last week of October. Kelsey’s departure delayed the launch of the new ASPA Central website and we expect that the site will go live at the beginning of the New Year.

Finally, Anne Mason gave notice of her retirement at the end of this year, requiring us to embark upon a search for her replacement. We are pleased to welcome Andrew Boden into the role of Executive Director. Andrew will officially begin his new role on December 3rd.

While I am still on the Board for one more year, this is my final year as President of APSA. It has been a challenging year but it has also been extremely rewarding to see some of our important initiatives move forward.

I would like to extend my deepest thanks to David Agosti who has served as Vice President over the past year, to Chris Claiter for filling the role of Secretary/Treasurer and to each of the Board Members (Laura Vajanto, Diane Mar-Nicolle, Ryan Fortin, Jane Hawkins, Irene Mihalik, Ian Berecovitz and Jeff Bryer).

I would also like to thank our hard-working Committee Chairs, Richard Blackwell (Pension Advisory Committee), Kris Nordgren (University Affairs Committee), Andrew Boden (Advocacy Committee), Jeff Bryer (Nominating Committee), Chris Claiter (Finance Committee), David Agosti (Total Compensation Review Committee) and Jo-Anne Ray (Salary and Negotiations Committee) whose work will ramp up next year as we head into salary negotiations.

5. Treasurer’s Report

Anne Mason, APSA Executive Director, and Chris Claiter, APSA Treasurer, presented the financial statements and 2018/2019 budget, which can be seen above.

Questions:

  • Will APSA accrue any expenses from the un-invoiced liability from Murray Gold?
    APSA will discuss this with our accountant.
  • What is the GST expense?
    SFU now charges GST on some services, which is broken out into a separate invoice.

Motion:

Be it resolved that the membership accept the financial reports and budget.

Moved: Andrew Boden. Seconded: Jo-Anne Ray. Motion Carried.

5. Committee Reports

a. Pension Advisory Committee

Richard Blackwell, Chair of the PAC, reported on the Pension Plan negotiations and voting.

Blackwell was pleased to report that the Memorandum of Agreement was signed and is now before the membership for consideration. 98% of the MOA was completed in August 2018, and the final 2% was finally agreed upon last week.

APSA members will be able to vote on the proposed pension plan changes starting tomorrow November 30, 2018, at 12:01 am. The polls will close on Dec 5th at 1:30 pm.

The next steps, assuming the changes are approved, the committee will be working with the University and the other employee groups to commit the MOA into the pension plan texts.

If the changes are not approved the plan will stay the same for the time being, though it’s impossible to predict other outcomes.

b. Total Compensation Review Committee

David Agosti, Chair of the TCRC, reported on the current state of the TCRC and the Colin Taylor Award.

Agosti reported SFU is developing a new Job Evaluation System. APSA has been frustrated with the University’s unwillingness to share any information regarding this new system.

The Market Survey has gone out, and while it was not the “perfect” survey, APSA is pleased the survey has gone out and is expecting the results back soon.

Finally, APSA has negotiated with the University on applying the funds from the Colin Taylor award. There have been some Extended Health Benefit improvements, as well as a small payout to all APSA members. The details of these improvements and the payout will be sent out to all APSA members via newsletter.

c. Advocacy Committee

The written Advocacy committee report can be found at the link above.

d. University Affairs Committee

The written University Affairs committee report can be found at the link above.

Questions:

  • My understanding of the continuing money from the Colin Taylor Award was for the salary scale.
    No, the money in the award was to pay for the work of the committee. The committee decided this was the best use of funds after paying for the market survey.
  • What happens if the market survey comes back and shows that SFU staff are underpaid?
    The Job Evaluation system is supposed to look at “internal equity” Making sure that similar jobs on campus are paid the same.
    The Market Survey is meant to look at some individual jobs to see how they are paid compared to the Market. What we don’t know is what future monies will be available, or arguments the University has to make to the province to ensure these jobs are paid above a certain market threshold.
    So far, TCRC has not had any discussions yet on the details of the results of the survey.
  • Will the University still be bound by the PSEC mandate?
    It is the opinion of the APSA Board that the results from the Market Survey and remedies to the results should be separate from the mandate and Salary & Benefits negotiations.
  • If people run into problems with pension voting, who should they contact?
    They can contact Richard Blackwell, or email the APSA office who can send them along to the Pension Committee.

6. Introduction of the 2019 APSA Board of Directors

Wanda Dekleva, David Agosti, Jane Hawkins, Ryan Fortin, Ian Bercovitz, Irene Mihalik, and Jeff Bryer will be continuing their terms on the board.

The newly elected board members are Mitch Stoddard, Sharina Janif, Rehana Bacchus.

With great thanks, we wish the outgoing board members well. Thank you Chris Claiter, Laura Vajanto, and Diane Mar-Nicolle.

7. Other Business

There was no other business.

8. Adjourn

The meeting adjourned at 12:56 pm