Daily Bulletin

Finances: maybe okay, for now

Kalbfleisch had plenty of numbers for the committee, but not a finished budget, largely because salary negotiations with staff, faculty and graduate students are still in progress.

He did tell the committee that the way things look right now, there's about enough money to pay for a 1 per cent pay increase for faculty, staff and teaching assistants (plus merit increases where they apply) and still balance the operating budget. The cost of those increases would be about $3,600,000, he said, admitting that "1 per cent is less than we'd like to provide."

If salary increases end up being more than that, he said, budget cuts would be likely, since there isn't any obvious way to increase income.

Christine Cheng, president of the Federation of Students, asked whether "the main reason tuition is being increased" was to pay for salary increases. Not just that, Kalbfleisch replied: many kinds of expense are going up, from hydro bills to the cost of library books, and "one of the important costs of running a university is to appropriately pay the faculty and staff."

Highlights of what was new in the information provided by the provost yesterday:

Tomorrow brings a "tuition forum" at 11:30 in the great hall of the Student Life Centre. "Come ask the UW president why your tuition keeps going up!" an ad invites students.

• He'll ask the board of governors to approve tuition fee increases of 2 per cent in most programs (the maximum the Ontario government will allow this year); 7 per cent in undergraduate engineering and computer science; 10 per cent in optometry and the Master of Accounting program.
• The co-op fee is to be reduced from the current $420 per term to $400.
• Costs for employee benefits are going through the roof, with premiums for the staff and faculty health program, in particular, expected to rise by 25 per cent this year. The total for benefits, including Canada Pension, will nudge $25 million in the coming year.
• Contribution to the UW pension fund, both from the university and from individual staff and faculty, will stay at 25 per cent of the normal level for another year -- at least, that's the recommendation that will go to the board of governors from the pension and benefits committee. With the stock market booming, the fund is in such good shape that the contribution rate has been reduced to 25 per cent for two years now. It was scheduled to go to 50 per cent next year and eventually back to 100 per cent of normal. Kalbfleisch asked the committee, which met on Monday, to accept another year of lower contributions, and it said yes.
• The huge debt that UW took on at the time of the early retirement program in 1996 will be all paid off by the end of the current fiscal year, five weeks from now -- almost all, anyway. At one time the debt was some $19 million. Kalbfleisch is estimating that the university will have a $200,000 remaining deficit as of April 30.

Second thoughts about growth

He said several university leaders would be meeting with Dianne Cunningham, the minister of training, colleges and universities, last night to tell her how the five-year limit on fee increases and the complicated allocation of grant increases will make it hard for universities to manage, plan and maintain quality.

"None of what was announced," said Kalbfleisch, "bears any resemblance to what was discussed" over several months by the Working Group on University Capacity, a joint government-university group that was discussing how to cope with the expected growth in Ontario enrolment and the "double cohort" in 2003.

"Maybe we weren't talking to the right people," he said.

A committee member asked him what he thinks the government is driving at. "They want lots more places provided in the Ontario system, and they want to do it cheaply," he said. Enrolment is expected to grow by 3 per cent this year, while a 1 per cent grant increase is being provided to cover the costs.

None of that growth is likely to be at Waterloo. The first-year class at this university was 15 per cent over the target last fall, at some 4,600 students, and under the government's formula there will be no "accessibility" funds unless this year's class is even bigger, which the provost said just isn't going to happen.

A few weeks ago, he was saying that UW could plan to grow by 15 or 20 per cent in the next few years. "If this is the way they intend to fund growth," he said yesterday, "we're in big trouble. . . . We may want to reconsider whether we participate at all."

Three candidates seek to represent staff

Nominations for a staff seat on the board closed March 8, the university secretariat says, and three candidates came forward seeking to follow Barry Scott of the UW research office as a board member. (The other staff representative on the 36-member board is Stephen Markan of information systems and technology.)

Biographies of the three candidates appear in the Gazette today. Here they are briefly:

• Cathy Hale, special projects assistant to the vice-president (university research), former vice-president of the staff association.
• Charlene Schumm, assistant registrar (scheduling), past president of the staff association.
• Ann Simpson, manager of the Student Life Centre, former member of the staff association executive.

To cast a ballot electronically, the secretariat's announcement says, a staff member will need to know his or her Employee Number (printed on pay statements). "During this period, a station will be open in the University Secretariat between 8:30-12:00 and 1:00-4:30 daily for those staff members without access to a computer or who require assistance."

And electronic voting is secret -- not even the secretariat will know who voted, let alone for whom. "There will be no trail," says university secretary Lois Claxton.

Ballots will be mailed to full-time union staff members on Monday, March 27. The election results will be announced on Friday, April 14.

Energy project helps local co-op

Throughout last summer and fall, 32 homes in the co-op housing project were assessed in an effort to reduce energy costs. The analysis includes the development of a prioritized list of suggested repairs or renovations.

Conducting energy audits of co-operative housing is a new development for REEP, a project of the UW faculty of environmental studies and the Elora Centre for Environmental Excellence. Since REEP was launched a year ago, some 700 homes in the region have been assessed by certified energy evaluators with the project, funded by the federal government's Climate Change Action Fund, Waterloo region, and the cities of Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge.

Performing analyses of cooperative housing developments is a new direction for the project, says Ryan Kennedy, a graduate intern with REEP. In addition to conducting energy audits of regular, single-family dwellings, talks are currently underway with two other housing cooperatives who wish to help their members conserve energy.

The energy assessment, valued at more than $300, is still available for $25. Based on findings so far, REEP can help homeowners reduce energy consumption by an average of 25 per cent, with an average annual savings on energy bills of 18 per cent. For more information or to book an evaluation, contact REEP at reep@fes or phone ext. 6661.

Other things happening today

Today brings a talk on "issues of depression and intimacy experienced by men", to be given by a pair of psychologists formerly on the St. Jerome's University faculty and now in private practice, John Theis and Peter Naus. Their visit and talk on "Emerging Masculinities" (Davis Centre room 1302, Wednesday at 12 noon) is sponsored by the Employee Assistance Program.

There's another noon-hour concert at Conrad Grebel College, this time a performance by the Greensleaves Renaissance Trio (viola da gamba, viols and recorders, and lute). The music starts at 12:30 in Grebel's chapel; admission is free.

Food services will be holding a charity auction at the Ron Eydt Village cafeteria. "Bid for partner merchandising items," a flyer says; that's all the information I have.

The Federation of Students will hold its annual general meeting at 4:30 p.m. today in the great hall of the Student Life Centre. All fee-paying members of the Federation -- that is, practically all undergraduate students -- are eligible to attend and vote. Among the agenda items is a proposal to set the Federation fee at $25.40 per term as of September 1 (it's currently $24.75).

A wine and cheese party for women in engineering will run from 4:30 to 6:00 today in the "fishbowl" lounge of the Davis Centre. "All are welcome," says Emily Thorn of the Women in Engineering Committee.

The "Focus on Web Design" series, sponsored by the Centre for Learning and Teaching Through Technology and WatCHI, continues today with a session on "Information Interaction Design" (4:30 p.m., Davis Centre room 1302).

The history department, along with the Laurier Centre for Military, Strategic and Disarmament Studies and the Royal Highland Fusiliers of Canada, present a talk tonight by Terry Copp, history professor at Wilfrid Laurier University and author of several well-known books about Canadian soldiers and World War II. He'll speak at 7:00 in Engineering Lecture Hall room 103, offering what's promised as "an interactive discussion on one of the most controversial Canadian military actions of the Second World War: Operation Spring".

The Graduate Student Association sponsors a pool tournament starting at 8 tonight at the Weavers Arms pub on Phillip Street. There's a $2 registration fee, in advance at the Grad House.

CAR

Editor of the Daily Bulletin: Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
credmond@uwaterloo.ca | (519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
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