Present: Ariel, Bisom, Dooley, Gelfand, Grahame, Heiman (recorder), Hughes, Jacobs, Jazayeri, Kaufman, Kjaer, Landis, MacLeod (chair), Manaka, McAdam, Munoff, Palmer, Ruttenberg, Sisson, Tanji, Tunender, Urrizola, Vick, Wilson, Woo

A special meeting of the LAUC-I General Membership was held to discuss the recommendations of the Report of the AdHoc Committee to Evaluate Professional Development Funding Process.
Steve MacLeod, LAUC-I chair, opened the meeting by welcoming Carol Ann Hughes, Associate University Librarian for Research, Instructional, and Access Services, to her first LAUC-I meeting. He then thanked the AdHoc Committee members, Vicki Grahame (chair), Julia Gelfand, Wanda Pittman Jazayeri, and Cathy Palmer, for their work on the report.

Steve said discussion of the recommendations would be followed by further development of procedures and guidelines by the Professional Development Committee and the Executive Board in conjunction with Judy Kaufman and Gerry Munoff. After a final document was formulated, it would be presented to the General Membership for a formal vote. The goal is to have a new policy on professional development funding in place by July 1st.

Vicki, chair of the AdHoc Committee, led the discussion. Some highlights:

· Recommendation 1 recommended that the base and tier method of allocation be replaced by a flat-amount per librarian. When it was expressed that people may end up getting less than what they are currently receiving, Vicki pointed out that $1200, recommended as the amount allocated per librarian in Recommendation 3, was more than people were getting under the current method of allocation. In the current year there were 29 Tier 1 requests and 6 Tier 2.

· It was decided Rec. 3 should be incorporated into Rec. 1 since the recommendation to change to a flat amount depended on receiving the $1200 amount. Other recommendations were not tied to Rec. 1.

· It is up to Library Administration to decide whether funding would be allotted at the $1200 level. The amount allocated would depend on the library budget and so could vary from year to year. The $1200 recommendation could also be adjusted for inflation.

· The flat amount would be easier to administer than the current process and more equitable. It would enable people to know early in the academic year how much funding they would receive and therefore easier to plan their professional development. It was also hoped that it would lead to less of a wait for reimbursement.

· Recommendation 2 covers the need for specifics on criteria for funding. This would be developed further by the PDC if the plan were adopted and implemented. A clear articulation of criteria for how the money can be used is a requirement of Library Administration for any plan to be adopted. In conjunction with this, it was brought up that it would be useful to have clarity on criteria on administrative funding and Judy said that guidelines were in the process of being revamped.

· Professional development requests would become more closely attuned with annual plans. Each librarian would have the ultimate responsibility to use funding in ways beneficial to their career and evaluations. They would work with their review initiators to see if funding requests were pertinent to their annual plan and professional development, and fulfilled Criteria I-IV. Requests would be based on the annual plan and coordinated with the funding amount. There would no longer be any need to determine whether it was covered under Tier 1 or 2.

· It was agreed that the role of the Professional Development Committee would definitely change. They would no longer have to review every request and determine funding allocated. Currently the PDC spends a lot of time with bookkeeping tasks. It was suggested this function might be shifted to a LAUC-I treasurer. The PDC could still keep track of level of professional participation if desired.

· Recommendations 4-5 addressed what would be done with unused funds and whether it could be rolled over from one year to the next. Judy said there would no longer be a second allocation at the end of the fiscal year of unused funds since it was not cost-effective.

· Recommendation 6 recommends investigation of direct payment of conference registrations and airfare by the Library Business Office. This would solve the issue of delays in reimbursement.

· Recommendation 7 recommended one form for all types of travel requests. There would be a place on the form to indicate whether professional or administrative activity.