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Minutes

DREXEL/MCP HAHNEMANN MERGER TRANSITION TEAM

Meeting No. 6
January 10, 2002

The meeting began at 5:07 p.m. in the President's Conference Room, Drexel University.

        Old Business. The Team reported no comments received regarding any of the matters that had been considered so far. The minutes from the meeting of January 3, 2001 were discussed to confirm their accuracy with respect to certain tenure-related issues. Those minutes have been posted and circulated.

        Reports on Subteams:

(a) Student Governance. All nominees accepted appointment. The Subteam has held its first meeting and established a schedule for meetings through mid-February. Its schedule will be posed on the MTT website. Its first meeting was very well attended and it has excellent people working on it.

(b) Faculty Governance. All nominees accepted appointment. The Subteam is scheduled to hold its first meeting tomorrow.

(c) Research (Indirect Cost Reimbursement). The nominees were agreed
upon, and an appointment memorandum will be circulated. The Subteam will be smaller than the others, and will not include student representatives, because it is only considering one limited issue.

        Upcoming Events. The Chair has invited members of the clinical faculty to two meetings next week – on Monday (5:00 pm) at Hahnemann and on Wednesday (7:00 am) at MCP. Dean Ross is expecting to attend. The purpose is to elicit comments, questions, concerns, requests, etc., from the clinicians, as well as to explain further the purely legal nature of the "firewall" and the Team's intent to ensure that the firewall not be the justification for or cause of any inequity.

        Benefits. The topic of this meeting is benefits. Joining the Team for the
meeting were: Rhonda Karp, Ellen Posner, Christine Kowalski, and Phyllis Lewis, who were all introduced by Tony Caneris. They then gave the team a 50-minute presentation of the differences in the benefits accorded employees of the two universities. The overview considered the following issues:

• Number of hours in the work day/week
• Vacation (days; carryover; payout)
• Life Insurance
• Health Insurance
• Prescription Drugs
• Dental Insurance
• Vision Care
• Sick Time (days; carryover; payout)
• Short Term Disability
• Long Term Disability
• Tuition Remission
• Pre-Tax Flexible Spending Accounts
• Retiree Benefits
• Retirement Plans

There is virtually no component of either benefits program that is the same. Indeed, the philosophies of the two universities are quite different: Drexel focuses on the individual employee and provides no family benefits, while MCPHU has benefit plans that help pay for both the individual and his families. Whether the plan is "good" or "bad" depends on a variety of lifestyle issues, including such issues as how close the person is to retirement, or whether the person has a spouse or children, or never or frequently needs a physician. Thus, there is virtually no way to predict what a good, uniform plan might be or what it would cost. As long as there are two corporate entities, each corporate entity may have its own benefits plan; but the goal is to equalize them over time.

The equalization of benefits is a very complicated matter. The Administration's current plan is to equalize benefits over three years, assuming the finances of PHEC generate the additional dollars, and that is what is in the pro forma financial statements that have been prepared; the preference is for the differences to be eliminated in shorter order, but it might take longer. The members of the Merger Transition Team expressed their views that this is not simply a "money issue" (and the financial consequences are substantial), but also a core issue in determining whether there is a unified university: the longer there are differences, the longer there will be lines that divide.

The Team decided that there was no further role for it to play at this time, until such time as Mr. Caneris and his team complete their evaluation of the various alternatives and make their recommendation. Even so, the Team asked that, in making their recommendations, they strive for equity within the fiscal constraints. This issue will be revisited by the Team.

        Next Meeting. The topic of the next meeting is intended to be infrastructure issues; however, there are many issues remaining from past meetings that also might be addressed. The Chair will communicate with the Team over the coming week.

        There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 7:48 p.m.

Tobey Oxholm
Chair and Secretary