Minutes

Next Scheduled Board Meeting:  Wednesday, January 18, 2023 at 1 pm

Minutes from September 21, 2022 Executive Board Meeting

Approved at October 19, 2022 Meeting

Present: Barb Budrovich, Pres.; Claudia Striepe, VP for faculty; Donald Santoianni, VP for classified employees; Sue Dowden, Treas.; Emily Rader, Sec’y.

1. Review of minutes of August 17 meeting. John Baranski’s last name was misspelled; this will be corrected. Board members voted (Emily was absent and abstained), to accept the minutes with the correction.

2. Sue reported on setting up an independent website. We currently have a page on the AFT website.

            A. Sue suggested our web address: www.elcoretirees.org. The Board voted in favor.

            B. Sue will maintain the website for now.

            C. Possible logo: the ECC bell. We need to get permission from ECC.

            D. Color scheme: ECC colors, blue and grey. Discussion ensued about what shade of blue.

            E. Info from CFT tech folks made reference to “wireframe” and “structure.” We don’t know what that is.

            F. Next step: Schedule Zoom meeting with Martin and Alex, CFT techs, to learn more about setting up a website. Sue and Emily will participate. In the meantime, all of us should look at suggested union websites that CFT techs have helped unions to set up: ccft1343.org, ccftunion.org, aft1343.org, culvercft.org.

            G. Claudia suggested we post our minutes and agendas on the website. Board agreed.

3. Barb reported on membership.

            A. Barb asked for help in setting up a listserv of all retirees. Emily will work on it.

            B. Angela Simon was at our August meeting. She suggested that Barb contact Andrea Sala to get up-to-date list of all retirees. Barb will continue to communicate with Angela and Andrea on this.

            C. Our Bylaws stipulate that only union members in good standing can be part of the retirees union. If we want others to be included, we must modify the bylaw. Discussion: It’s too early to revise Bylaws, as this Board is just interim. Wait until we become official, in May, we hope.

            D. Sue recommended that Barb meet with the new ECC president, Barbara Thames. This would make us “official” in ECC’s eyes. Barb would introduce us to Pres. Thames, and they can talk about what our union members can do for ECC. Barb will follow up.

            E. Sue also said that Barb should talk with Andrea about us sponsoring the retiree lunch. This could be a good way for retirees to meet us. Barb will follow up.

4. Emily spoke about the MoveOn.org petition to eliminate the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) from the Social Security Act. Emily will email pertinent items to Board members. Briefly, GPO decreases social security payments for spouses, widows and widowers who also get government pensions. WEP decreases social security payments for employees of agencies that don’t withhold SS taxes, for example, community colleges.

5. Discussion about an email from Angela Simon to Barb that she forwarded from Dennis Cox about a meeting of the CRM. None of us were familiar with this organization, and the forwarded email didn’t explain what it is. The Board decided that we would not attend. Claudia will investigate and tell us what CRM is.

Next meeting: Wed., Oct. 19.