The Vieux Carre room in the Student Union was filled Tuesday with University faculty members and instructors speaking about their job concerns.
The panel was comprised of gubernatorial candidate state Rep. John Bel Edwards, D-Amite; University professor Stuart Irvine; Southeastern State University Faculty Senate president James Kirylo; Faculty Senate President Kevin Cope; and blogger and community activist Dayne Sherman.
University employees spoke on issues they want amended, including retirement plans, health care and job contracts.
Cope compared the University’s Optional Retirement Plan, a plan to give a stipend to retirees similar to Social Security benefits, to those plans of peer universities to show the University does not contribute to their Social Security, but also contributes the lowest amount to retirement.
Other states contribute to both retirement plans and Social Security for employees, but at the University, funds are placed only into the retirement plan.
Cope said, when looking at the amounts put into the retirement plans at other universities, the numbers are comparable, but the other plans are designed to complement Social Security and the University’s ORP replaces it.
Cope said the University’s contribution rate to the ORP is set to increase over the next five years after a bill raising the minimum rate passed this year. But even so, it will be lower than its peer institutions.
The panelists also noted delays in receiving prescription medication benefits.
“I have many constituents who called me, unable to get prescriptions,” Edwards said. They shouldn’t have to check to make sure employees are getting the benefits they are promised, he said.
Edwards told a story about a state employee who faced the same plight as some University faculty. A woman with multiple sclerosis was unable to get one of her medications refilled for nearly a month.
Cope said the University needs to take care of and serve its faculty as well as its students.
Cope questioned the appeal of working in academia when the benefits are so poor and said serving faculty is a way to serve students.
Edwards brought up the several years of decreased state funding to higher education. He said tuition was increased for students, while at the same time, universities had less funding from the state. He referred to the budget cuts as a pyramid scheme, resulting in students paying more for less.
Cope said that while the retirement situation at the University is not getting much worse, there is still ample room for improvement.