By David Dyck
Board moves to a new healthcare provider
The board will be entering negotiations with a new healthcare provider, Desjardins, moving away from the current provider, Sun Life. “We discussed this at [the executive committee] and execs have been looking into this for the past one or two months now,” said member services officer Humza Khan. “We as execs have recommended it to board unanimously that we should go with Desjardins.”
Khan stated that Desjardins was offering a lower rate and more flexible plans for students, though the amount that each student will be paying has been set at $198, due to a referendum. The Peak will have more details in next week’s issue.
Max hours for non-execs increased to 60 per month
The hours that faculty and at-large board representatives can charge have gone from 40 per month to 60. The constitution and policy review committee made the recommendation in May, but some executive board members were hesitant to approve the increase.
“I don’t know if that’s necessary in the summer term, I think in the fall and spring semester when your portfolio is more full, and we’re just more busy, then it might make sense then,” said external relations officer Meaghan Wilson, citing the fact that only one representative has requested an hours increase. That was applied sciences representative Moe Kopahi, who made the request several weeks ago. The request was denied at that time with only one board member casting a vote.
“I’m completely for the fact that you guys want an increase in hours, my only concern, however, lies in the fact that it wasn’t even a month ago . . . that we denied Moe an increase in his stipend, and he was already going above 60 hours,” said Khan. “It was us who denied him that, so how do we justify increasing it now?”
“Now that I look back at it I wish that we did give it to him, but at the same time we all went over our hours during that month, so it would kind of be unfair to all the other people that we’re not all getting stipend increases,” responded environment faculty representative Monique Ataei. “We all went over our hours, we continue to do so . . . the job has to get done at the end of the day.”
Sarah Veness, the faculty representative for communication, arts, and technology, also defended the motion. “I just really wanted to remind board too that this wasn’t our motion that we put through, this was a recommendation from last year,” said Veness. “I think . . . it’s sort of a trend throughout the past years that board members have gone over their hours and that’s where the motion comes from.”
URO regrets ratified for July and August
This past May, university relations officer Jeff McCann requested standing regrets be ratified for summer, due to a co-op work term. At the time, the board ratified regrets only until the end of June, when the situation could be reevaluated. Last week, board decided to allow the regrets to stand until the end of August.
“He responds in an extremely timely manner even during a workday to questions, he’s always available by phone, I see him in the office sometimes more than I see other board members who are at this meeting right now,” said at-large representative Ashleigh Girodat. “I think that he is doing his job.”
There was one vote against the motion, by treasurer Kevin Zhang, who had raised concerns in May about accountability and transparency.
