COVID-19: Employee Resources

From Dr. Silvertooth:

"In direct answer to your question, yes. We will be working with the UA administration to help facilitate access for all UArizona personnel, including Extension and Experiment Station personnel working across the state.

Realistically, I know the first line of focus for the UA will be on campus to provide a safe environment for returning students, faculty, and staff. Included with that will be the UA personnel working in our statewide offices as well. 

As this testing program develops with the university, the Extension administration will make every effort to provide access to everyone working out in the state."

President Robbins released the University's furlough program to help mitigate the financial implications of the COVID-19 situation.  You can find all the information at the Employee Furlough Program page from Human Resources.  

Furlough and Pay Reduction Programs FAQs

Also, check out our own Financial Mitigation Plan page for more specific information and FAQs.

As University of Arizona employees, there are several tools that are designed for distant- or remote-learning activities.  The first resource to direct you to is the Office of Instruction & Assessment.  This is a great resource to find tools to help in delivering programs or other offerings virtually.  They have a few events that are coming up quickly, so please check out their Webinars page for those events.

They also have lots of guidance on various tools which can be used.  D2L, Qualtrics, Zoom, and Panopto are just some of the tools that are at your disposal.  TurningPoint will allow you to poll your attendees in real time.  They even have a picture roster tool to help you learn your participant’s names and develop quicker relationships.

Finally, there are several organizations which specialize in remote program delivery.  Companies like TechImpact are offering several free sessions on the topic and Extension is even planning some of our own soon.  And speaking of free, here are some ways to punch up your curriculum or class preparations.  Arizona’s Office of Digital Learning offers some “fantastic freebies” which are some great things to consider to in designing your workshops and courses.  Check out all they have to offer.

Absolutely. Prior to the COVID-19 issue, we had already been in works to deliver our Extension Conference in an alternate format. Although planning has not fully commenced – and will be impacted by the current situation – we’re still looking to deliver our annual conference virtually. More to come on this.

Exception employees will still enter their PAW as they normally do, unless they are using sick or vacation time.  Hourly workers should still be paid their agree-upon hours.  If they are working from home, they report regular time, unless they are sick or on vacation.  If an hourly worker is not able to complete their work at home, they still report hours but under the University Release code.  Sick employees must report sick time if they have available time; after their sick time has been exhausted, they will report time under University Release.

For other scenarios, please visit Guidance for employees and supervisors in reporting time on the HR site.

Per HR, new postings are on hold until June 30, 2020, but applications will continue to be accepted for existing postings.

If you have an open posting that you feel is absolutely critical to the unit, you may fill out a waiver form requesting the posting continue. Please keep in mind that the request must be tied to our ability to generate revenue. The request will be reviewed by the Associate Dean in consultation with Dean Burgess. Send waiver requests to Jennifer Gardner Smith.  

Process as you always have through your business office.  You can scan/email receipts and they will be processed.  Please keep all original receipts as they will still need to be turned in when operations return to normal.  Although reconciliation time for PCard has been increased to 28 days, please do not delay sending your e-mail/scans to your business officer.

At this time, all employees should be paid their regular hours.  If a position ends in the normal course of a grant cycle, process as normal.

The University of Arizona has placed the following travel restrictions due to the current outbreak of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19). 

• Effective immediately, all future international travel for academic and business reasons by University of Arizona faculty, staff, and students shall not be authorized until further notice. 
• Effective immediately, all non-essential domestic out-of-state academic and business travel for University of Arizona faculty, staff, and students is suspended, and will not be authorized until further notice.  

If travel is deemed as essential, approval will need to be obtained from the appropriate Senior Vice President responsible for your unit.  For Extension personnel, this would be Director Silvertooth's office.

Fieldwork is fine as long as social distancing is maintained, which is not difficult to do in the field.  However, travel to-and-from the field is the problematic part.  It is not advisable for groups of people to travel together in one vehicle.

From Dr. Silvertooth:

"Fortunately, our line for FY21 is secure in the state budget.  That is the good news.   However, our state funding is up for discussion every year.  Fortunately, we have many friends and supporters of Extension across the state who advocate for us in their local communities.  We need to continue to deliver strong programs and services, but we also must be aware that how we deliver those services needs to be carefully looked at – especially with the current state of the pandemic. 

Every month, I ask CEDs to provide a monthly report of highlights for their respective counties.  In that report, there is a section for “Because of…” statements.  These are what we often use to help promote all the great things happening in your counties and our marketing initiatives will help to put those on the desks of legislators.  I would encourage you to work with your CEDs and academic unit heads to include your own “Because of…” statements every month."

Absolutely.  We are planning on including a session on this exact thing during our Annual Conference being planned for the week of October 5^th, 2020 – all virtual.  So please watch for more communications on that. 

Any permanent cuts are applied to the overall Extension budget.  It will be up to each unit to determine where the cuts will be applied.  And a lot still depends on the overall decision of the University’s final furlough plan and our request to the provost.

Salary savings dollars will not be applied to your furlough.  Furlough days are calculated by a percentage of salary, not by days allocated to a grant.   Please review with your business officer if you are having issues with your furlough numbers.  The UArizona furlough calculator is just a tool but does not calculate into decimal points.

There has been no final determination about faculty salary savings.  Furlough days are assigned by the amount of salary that is in an eligible account category.  For instance, an employee who makes $10,000, 70% on state funding and 30% on Fed Ag (Smith Lever) funding would have their furlough commitment calculated on $7,000.  If the employee is further paid 5% of their salary on a grant, that percentage would also be excluded, and the furlough requirement would be based on $6,500 for the period the grant is active.  The University Payroll office will be taking snapshots of employee distributions every two weeks (payroll period) and adjusting furlough requirements accordingly. To make a balanced quid pro quo with one day on a grant equaling one less furlough day, an employee would have to have a furlough obligation of 262 days.

From Dr. Silvertooth:

"We do not know.  We are asking the same thing every week of the team leading the efforts at the University level.  Every week, we watch the President’s Town Halls with Dr. Carmona, and it is obvious that Arizona’s COVID-19 numbers indicate we are not getting closer to in-person programming any time soon.  I know this is not the news you wanted to hear, and it’s definitely not the news I want to communicate, but this is my honest assessment at this time."

From Dr. Silvertooth:

"My short answer to this is 'yes'.  

But how we survive will depend on how we respond as an organization.  For example, if we posted no opposition to the proposed furlough or budget reductions, and offered no alternative solution, we would be in a much worse position.  But, because of our exemption request, which I’m confident is  a valid request for the University to consider, and because of our ability to continue to deliver for the people of the state in alternative models, I’m convinced Arizona Cooperative Extension will survive.

Our history has been hands-on, in-person, and “boots on the ground.”  But it would be unrealistic to believe it is  all going to stay that way.  If anything, this pandemic has forced us to look at ourselves and find our delivery deficiencies.  Now that many are clear, we can begin to look for ways to address and work with our partners to deliver programs in new, effective, and innovative ways."

We remain optimistic, but realistic in the sense that all county offices and programs across the entire state will open at the same time and operate at the same capacity.  However, we know each county is unique, as are the programs offered, the community makeup, and the infestation of the disease varies from county to county.  So, as much as we would like to have everyone open and have things return to “normal,” we know that is probably not going to be the case. 

To set the right expectation, we will await word from the University as to when the task force says it is safe to re-open and then work with each local government to assess their ordinances.  After we have a good sense of all the data, then, in conjunction with CEDs and Experiment Station Directors, we can begin to plan the re-opening of our county offices and in-person programming.  Please keep in mind that there are several programs that quickly shifted to a virtual model and are thriving – so if there is any way to continue virtual programming, please do so.

Smith-Lever funds are a special category, FED AG, that has been excluded from the furlough obligation.

It is too soon to absolutely say what the case will be for salary savings.  We anticipate that salary savings will be available in some form.