IV: Benefits for Sponsor-Supported General Faculty and Staff (Primarily Research Faculty and Professional Research Staff)

Issue #2 – Eligibility for Employer Contributions to Health Benefits.  Due to vagaries in funding cycles beyond their control, sponsor-supported faculty may sometimes experience temporary breaks in full-time extramural support for salary and benefits.  According to current University policy, if sponsor support for these faculty falls a fraction below 100% for a single pay period (and if other sources of bridging support cannot be negotiated on an ad hoc basis), all employer contributions to health benefits immediately cease.  More importantly, those members of the faculty remain ineligible for employer contributions to health benefits until such time as 6-months of full-time support into the future can be guaranteed.  We believe that this policy and, in particular, the latter (6-month) criterion is not in the University’s self interest in recruiting and retaining the world-class research faculty that will be required to meet its stated goal of building national prominence as a research institution.

Resolution:  The GFC requests that the Provost, the Vice President for Research, and Human Resources work with us in developing an alternative policy whereby employer contributions to health benefits for sponsor-supported faculty would continue during and immediately following temporary breaks in full-time sponsor support without respect to the duration of full-time support guaranteed into the future.