{"id":164065,"date":"2016-06-25T20:58:44","date_gmt":"2016-06-26T02:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=164065"},"modified":"2016-06-29T10:42:33","modified_gmt":"2016-06-29T16:42:33","slug":"nmsu-regents-to-vote-monday-on-employee-benefit-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2016\/06\/nmsu-regents-to-vote-monday-on-employee-benefit-cuts\/","title":{"rendered":"NMSU Regents to vote Monday on employee benefit cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n
\"Hadley

Rachel Valerio \/ University Communications<\/p>

The meeting will be held Monday at noon in Conference Room 130 in Hadley Hall, the building shown here.<\/p><\/div>\n

Members of the New Mexico State University Board of Regents are scheduled to\u00a0vote on much-anticipated cuts to employee benefits Monday during\u00a0a meeting\u00a0that won’t be webcast and\u00a0isn’t being held in the Regents’ normal meeting room.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Conference Room 130 in Hadley Hall<\/a> on the NMSU main campus, where the meeting will be held, can hold 30-40 people, according to university spokesman Justin Bannister. Public comments will be allowed\u00a0before the vote, according to the meeting agenda<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That means\u00a0NMSU employees and others will have an opportunity to show up and be heard.<\/p>\n

The public meeting is scheduled to begin at noon, according to the official notice.<\/a>\u00a0The Regents had also planned to meet behind closed doors at 8 a.m.\u00a0in room 251 in Domenici Hall<\/a>, but cancelled that executive session on Sunday<\/a> after concerns were raised that the lack of specificity about why they were meeting might violate the state’s Open Meetings Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Regents usually hold public meetings in a room in the Educational Services building<\/a> that allows for webcasting. Video of most Regents meetings is\u00a0archived online<\/a> for later viewing.<\/p>\n

The Regents have met in the Hadley Hall conference room a couple of\u00a0other times in the past 12 months, Bannister said. Board of Regents Chair\u00a0Debra Hicks decides where to hold meetings, Bannister\u00a0said — and he didn’t\u00a0know why Monday’s meeting is in Hadley Hall.<\/p>\n

The Hadley Hall meeting room isn’t set up for webcasting, according to Bannister.<\/p>\n

The looming employee benefit cuts are part of the university’s efforts to eliminate $10.7 million from its annual budget. That’s necessary because the state decreased funding for\u00a0the university earlier this year and enrollment has fallen. The Regents rejected a proposed tuition increase<\/a> to help cover the shortfall in April.<\/p>\n

The university isn’t yet releasing details of the proposal that is\u00a0up for a vote on Monday. Bannister said NMSU should\u00a0release details Monday afternoon if the Regents approve the cuts.<\/p>\n

The university’s administration has held meetings with employees to discuss proposed cuts and get feedback.\u00a0Bannister said the proposal that will be voted on\u00a0Monday shouldn’t come as a surprise.<\/p>\n

The university has considered\u00a0getting rid of the Employee Health Center<\/a>, reducing administrative salaries, eliminating retiree health coverage, eliminating sick leave payouts, and cutting\u00a0annual leave, NMSU Chancellor Garrey Carruthers wrote in an April memo<\/a> to employees. The university has set up a website<\/a> with documents, archived video of town-hall meetings, and other information about the cuts being\u00a0considered.<\/p>\n

The vote on\u00a0reducing employee benefits\u00a0is on the consent agenda for Monday’s meeting, which means the Regents may approve the cuts without any discussion. A member of the Regents could\u00a0ask to\u00a0discuss the proposed cuts before a vote.<\/p>\n

Cutting benefits\u00a0isn’t\u00a0the only high-profile\u00a0item on Monday’s agenda<\/a>. The Regents are also scheduled to vote on a proposal to require freshmen to live on campus<\/a>, though there would be exemptions for some students.<\/p>\n

This article has been updated to reflect the cancellation of the Regents’ closed session that had been scheduled for Monday.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Members of the New Mexico State University Board of Regents are scheduled to vote on much-anticipated cuts to employee benefits Monday during a meeting that won’t be webcast and isn’t being held in the Regents’ normal meeting room.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":164113,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[196,118,125,133,706],"class_list":["post-164065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-budget","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-nmsu","tag-transparency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}