Association of Professional Administrators

Minutes 2023-02

Date/Time: Friday, February 17, 2023 at 9:00am

Location: Zoom Room

Present

APA Statewide

  • Susan McNeil, Vice President
  • Mark Powers, Secretary
  • Aaron Childs, Membership Coordinator (Non-voting)
  • Gerol Petruzella, Web Manager (Non-voting)
  • Catherine Santiago, MTA Field Representative (Non-voting)
  • Roberta James, MTA Field Representative (Non-voting)

APA Chapter Presidents

  • Marissa Barros, Massachusetts Maritime Academy – Acting
  • Seth Bean, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts
  • Renee Bernier, Bridgewater State University
  • Brian Cahillane, Westfield State University
  • Jane Decatur, Framingham State University
  • Peter Fenuccio, Worcester State University
  • Sherry Horeanopoulos, Fitchburg State President
  • Susan McNeil, Massachusetts College of Art & Design
  • Rosa Taormina, Salem State University

Guests

  • Rebecca Shersnow (Fitchburg VP)
  • Gretchen Mayhew (Fitchburg Grievance Officer)

Absent

APA Statewide

  • Maria Brunelle, Treasurer (Non-Voting)

APA Chapter Presidents

  • Seth Bean, President
  • Edward Vacha, Massachusetts Maritime Academy

Call to Order

  • 9:05 am

Approval of Minutes

  • Per agreement of the Executive Board, the Minutes of the January 20, 2023 Executive Board Meeting were approved electronically on February 6, 2023.

Public Comments

  • None.

President’s Report – Susan McNeil for Seth Bean

  1. Parameters Petition submitted to Governor on February 9, 2023. MTA collected over 8000 signatures. Please encourage your chapter membership to sign up for Advocacy Day.
  2. Survey need to be reviewed by all chapter presidents. Please review and update/edit as needed.
  3. Election runner for Bylaw changes Ballot to be sent to all Dues Paying members on February 28, 2023. The most important proposed change is to the definition of the Union’s negotiation team.
  4. Bargaining meeting regarding APA unit members in Public Safety on all nine (9) campuses – next steps. Management now seems to understand now that APA is only asking to pay our members overtime when AFSCME officers are unable or unwilling to cover the shifts. We are hopeful for a quick victory on this.
  5. MSCA has mentioned that Management has been very adamant about returning to in-person negotiations, which would be problematic for our silent representation. We will be checking in with MSCA on how that is going as so far Management has agree to MCSA silent reps to be ‘present’ via Zoom at the in-person meetings.
    We’ll need to design a form for gathering names of potential APA silent representatives. We also need to agree on the definition & responsibilities of the APA silent representatives. How we actually manage the Zoom environment at the negotiations meetings is another issue and may require designating an APA member as the Zoom Manager.
  6. Bargaining 101 Training Part II – scheduled Wednesday, February 22, 2023 from 4:00pm to 5:30pm.
  7. MTA Updates – Catherine Santiago
    1. Advocacy Day – Tuesday February 28th: Advocacy Day Registration https://www.mobilize.us/massteacher/event/548019/
    2. Advocacy Day Bus Registration https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=61uWWiYlBEG2gBMeVZPHUcsra- JXuUZCnjvf4qnOAvVUQkRBR0JONDFQNjE2WVY1QjJDTjBSS1lNRS4u&origin=Invitation&channel=0&wdLOR=c47C47FC D-7D83-4192-AA70-78C4AE3C92AD
    3. Governor’s budget comes out on March 1st.
    4. At HELC, working group created and charged with to see if H&W Trust Fund can be merged into the overall State H&W.

Treasurer’s Report – Maria Brunelle

  1. Payroll due on Tuesday, February 21, 2023 by 12:00pm.
  2. Approval of January 2023 Treasurer’s Report
  • Amendments: None
  • Motion to approve membership report as presented/amended made:
  • by: S. McNeil 2nd by: S. Horeanopoulos
  • Vote: Unanimous Action: Motion Carries

Membership and Data – Aaron Childs

  1. 1359 Overall Membership since January 2023. An Increase of 37.
  2. 198 Non-Dues Paying Member. An Increase of 33 since January 2023.
  3. Round two of the database audit is complete. This round was to address members who are listed in one of my reports from the state but are not in our database. 149 members were identified.
    1. 73 of these members were hired during the pandemic (using 2020 – August 2022 as the “pandemic period”)
    2. 22 members were hired pre-pandemic
    3. 52 members were hired after September 1, 2022

Website – Gerol Petruzella

  1. 1 January – 31 January 2023
    1. Website Overview – Users. During January 2023, maapa.org saw decreases in users and sessions relative to December 2022 (Figure 1). The most popular days/times for users to visit the site were Fridays between 10a and 1p ET, and Thursdays between 11a and 12p ET (Figure 2).
    2. Website Overview – Traffic. Traffic to maapa.org was predominantly direct traffic or the result of a Google search (Figure 3). The top 10 most visited pages are indicated (Figure 4).
    3. Website Overview – Other. 
      • I performed content updates on the site including:
        1. Updated meeting minutes.
  2. On 26 June, Google Analytics notified that the current “Universal Analytics” product (which we use for maapa.org) will sunset on 1 July 2023. Web managers are encouraged to move to their new product, Google Analytics 4, as soon as possible. This will require a property setup process to implement and transition, to maintain data continuity. (link to Google’s blog post about the analytics transition.)
  3. After consulting with the Board, I am proceeding with plans to migrate the current Drupal site to WordPress with an intended switchover date of roughly March 15, 2023.

Health and Welfare Fund Report – Susan McNeil

  1. Not really meeting and keep rescheduling.
  2. https://www.mass.edu/forfacstaff/healthwelfare/home.asp

Committee Reports

Budget Committee – Rosa Taormina & Seth Bean

Employee Relations Working Group –

Vincent Pedone on behalf of the Council of Presidents (CoP) wants to have this working group active
again prior to Negotiations.

Professional Development – Edward Vacha

Special Committees:

  1. Committee on Legislative Action – Susan McNeil, Seth Bean, & Sherry Horeanopoulos
  2. Committee on Health & Safety – Renee Bernier & Susan McNeil
  3. Negotiations – Contract Committee
  4. Employee Relations Committee – Brian Cahillane, Jane Decatur, & Rosa Taormina

Old/New Business

  1. FAQ of the Month for the Website for March –
    1. Something about the Survey to Membership
    2. Sick Bank and when you can join it or how you can ask to use it.
  2. Applying/using union time in HRCMS when not in an elected APA Chapter position.
  3. Review the Membership Survey questions.

Institutional Issues

Announcements

  • None

Adjournment

  1. Motion to Adjourn made at 11:15am by: S. Horeanopoulos
    2nd by: M. Powers
    Vote: Unanimous
    Action: Motion Carries

APA Meeting Schedule 2022-2023:

  • APA Executive Board | 10:00am | Friday, September 16, 2022 | Virtual | Zoom
  • APA Executive Board | 10:00am | Friday, October 21, 2022 | Virtual | Zoom
  • APA Executive Board | 10:00am | Friday, November 18, 2022 | Hybrid | Zoom/TBD
  • Annual Statewide Membership | 12:00am | Friday, November 18, 2022 | Hybrid | Zoom/TBD
  • APA Executive Board | 10:00am | Friday, December 16, 2022 | In-Person | TBD
  • APA Executive Board | 9:00am | Friday, January 20, 2023 | Virtual | Zoom
  • APA Executive Board | 9:00am | Friday, February 17, 2023 | Virtual | Zoom
  • APA Executive Board | 9:00am | Friday, March 17, 2023 | Virtual | Zoom
  • APA Executive Board | 9:00am | Friday, April 21, 2023 | Virtual | Zoom
  • APA Executive Board | 10:00am | Friday, June 16, 2023 | In-Person | TBD

Topics for next round of negotiations:

  • Salary Compression
  • Wage/Salary Equity
  • Longevity
  • Workload
  • Sick Bank Leave Committee Language

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