The Policy Review Committee met via Zoom on Thursday, June 15, 2023 at 10:00 a.m.
Accommodations Policy
Tiffany Bailey (Director of Equal Opportunity and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Coordinator) presented the University’s new Accommodations policy. The goal is to combine several smaller accommodations policies into one comprehensive and easy-to-understand policy. It will cover ADA, religious, and pregnancy and parenting policies. It will also serve to streamline the corresponding procedures. There were no substantive changes to how any of the accommodation processes work, they have just been consolidated and refined. The PRC welcomed the consolidation. Bailey clarified that lactation policy isn’t included in the comprehensive policy because lactation accommodations are federally mandated and do not need to be requested.
Lactation Policy
Tiffany Bailey also presented updates to the University’s Lactation policy. The updates provide more structure to guarantee lactating parents have private space to pump and regularly set breaks. PRC Chair Matthew Teal suggested that maps.unc.edu could have a filter for lactation spaces. Bailey thought this was a good idea and was going to explore further.
Religious Accommodations Policy; and Pregnant and Parenting Student Policy (retired)
Katie Nolan (Executive Director of Strategy, Policy, and Special Projects for the UNC-Chapel Hill Division of Human Resources and Equal Opportunity and Compliance) presented the Request to retire the Religious Accommodations Policy and the Pregnant and Parenting Student Policy. As Bailey discussed above, the comprehensive policy includes these policies resulting in redundancies.
Longevity Pay Policy
Katie Nolan also presented updates to the University’s Longevity Pay Policy. The updates work to clarify who is eligible for longevity pay. It also reduces redundancy with the North Carolina Office of State Human Resources (OSHR) policy by referring directly to the OSHR policy. PRC members liked the changes but asked if OHR could retire the policy altogether and simply direct University employees to the OSHR policy. OHR is publishing the updates for now but will revisit the question of whether the policy should be retired and will update the PRC on the results of that discussion.
Standard on Providing Assistance with Individual Account and Use Data
Kim Stahl (IT Policy and Process Lead) presented the Standard on Providing Assistance with Individual Account and Use Data. This is meant to provide guidance to University staff (primarily IT staff) who manage systems with individual accounts. It also establishes uniform requirements for answering requests for system logs related to people’s use of IT systems.
Finance and Budget Policy Documents (retired)
- 1116 – Tax Issues for Foreign National Students and Scholars
- 1116.1 – Procedure on Tax Reporting for University-Affiliated Foreign Nationals
- 1119 – Foreign National Scholarship/Fellowship Awardee Policy
- 1119.1 – Procedure for Completing Tax Withholding Forms as a Foreign National Scholarship/Fellowship Awardee
- 1120 – Policy on Tax Status of Foreign Nationals
- 1120.1 – Procedure on Determining Tax Status of Foreign Nationals
- 1121 – Policy on Social Security Tax Withholding for Foreign Nationals
- 1121.1 – Procedure on Determining Social Security Tax Withholding for Foreign Nationals
- 1122 – Policy on Federal and State Income Tax Withholding for Foreign Nationals
- 1122.1 – Procedure on Determining Federal and State Income Tax Withholding for Foreign Nationals
Walter Miller (Director of Payroll Services) presented the request to retire 10 Finance and Budget policies and procedures. All are being retired because they’re duplicative of federal law and external regulations. Similar to the discussion about OHR’s Longevity Pay Policy, Finance and Budget will instead simply direct University employees to the relevant external regulations.
Administrative updates
The PRC meeting in July will be in person for the first annual PRC Celebration. The Ethics and Policy Office will provide lunch. PRC members should contact the Ethics and Policy Office if they need help with parking arrangements.
The Ethics and Policy Office has published a new resource to help guide anyone who is scheduled to present at a PRC meeting – Policy 302: Presenting to the Policy Review Committee.
The Ethics and Policy Office have also updated the University and Unit policy document templates. The revised versions are available as downloadable Word documents and are loaded into the University Policy Repository.
Both the Policy 302 resource and the updated templates are available on the Ethics and Policy Office’s “Resources webpage.
Finally, the Ethics and Policy Office is hoping to have more trainings and a refreshed website ready to present to PRC at the July PRC Celebration meeting.