University of Waterloo

Daily Bulletin

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Thursday, May 18, 1995

Council is taking counsel

UW's top brass, presidents and deans and such, is off today and tomorrow for the annual executive council retreat at Kempenfelt Bay resort near Barrie.

Nobody's made an agenda public, but it doesn't take the brains of an associate provost to guess that there will be plenty of talk about budgets, and ways UW might cope if government funding for universities goes down next year and the year after. A drop of "5 to 15 per cent" in funding is what's being tossed around. UW's office of institutional analysis and planning has been working on more detailed predictions, based on various combinations of guesses about how Ontario will respond to cuts in federal transfer payments. All such guesses, of course, are subject to being thrown out the window after the Ontario election, to be held three weeks from today.

Desirable residence, no commuting

Gail Clarke of UW's residences office sends this note: "Two Tutor Houses are available for UW employees to rent. These are available July 1 and October 1. Monthly rental is $1,045 which includes basic unit rental, water, sanitation, hydro, grounds maintenance and parking. Union Gas, cable and telephone are billed separately to the tenant. Each unit contains four bedrooms and approximately 2,500 square feet of total living space. If you are interested in applying, please contact Gail Clarke at extension 5634 or by e-mail giclarke@mc6adm.uwaterloo.ca."

And here's news about health

Sandie Hurlburt of the human resources department has this advice for staff and faculty about the extended health insurance plan: "New Liberty Health certificates were mailed out by Human Resources this week. This card replaces your paper Blue Cross card. All identification numbers and coverages remain the same. The term 'Non Provider Network' on the card refers to our reimbursement plan. Dependents are not listed on the card. Keep your World Assistance card (for travel coverage). Travel coverage and hotline numbers remain the same, and Liberty Health stickers will be distributed soon to update your World Assistance card."

Progress on UW's financial systems

The people behind the Financial Systems Project introduced a new Web page this week, describing how the project is coming along. You can find it through UWinfo, by looking under "departments".

Half of the FSP has to do with accounting, purchasing and bean-counting -- the implementation of Oracle Financials software to keep UW's financial records. The other half is the Human Resources Management System, the introduction of new ways of keeping records about the 3,000 people who work for this university, including their pay, their benefits, their workers' compensation, their "employment equity" status, their qualifications, and so on. "It is expected that the volume of paper shuffling required to hire, pay and manage employees will diminish," says one of the FSP Web pages. Also promised: "Wider access to human resources and payroll information by users throughout the University environment."

What's to celebrate today?

Well, the Maple Leafs hung in for an overtime win and are still in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Today's Lag b'Omer, a happy summer festival in Judaism. It's a birthday for Peter Roe, of the systems design engineering department.

Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
(519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
credmond@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca

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