Travel Committee report

Fiscal year 2004-2005

 

The Travel Committee was charged with the equitable distribution of funds (allocated from the Library's operating budget) for professional development travel by librarians. The Committee was also responsible for recommending changes and updates to the existing Professional Travel policies and procedures. 

 

Ø     The Travel Committee met several times during the 2004-2005 Academic Year to approve travel requests and discuss allocations and other business.

 

Travel budget allocations

 

Ø     Initial travel allocation of $6,708 available in October 2004 was intended to cover ALA Mid-Winter travel requests.  Call for ALA Mid-Winter travel was issued in October 2004.

 

Ø     After an additional allocation of $15,000 became available, the second call for professional development travel was issued in November 2004.

 

Ø     Travel allocations did not change in comparison with the previous year and stayed at the following levels:

 

Out-of-State Presenter          $650.00

Out-of-State Non-Presenter  $575.00

In-State Presenter                 $250.00

In-State Non-Presenter         $200.00

 

Ø     Nine requests for ALA Mid-Winter conference were submitted totaling to $5,850 (coming out of $6,708). 

Ø     Total for other professional development travel requests was: $23,700 ($15,000 available).  Majority of travel requests were approved.  Four requests were considered directly work related, one request was rejected since conference was scheduled for August 2005, (2005-2006 fiscal year), the librarian was asked to resubmit request next year.  It was requested that University Librarians submit a TAR for ALA Annual after the conference so it could be reimbursed from the 2005-2006 budget to cover the deficit of $8,700. 

Ø     Six trips were cancelled and a total deficit decreased to $2,600 allowing some of the University Librarians to get reimbursed from 20004-2005 budget.

Ø     The freeze was imposed on the discipline related travel due to the budget constraints.

 

 

 Librarian Travel Policy and Procedures

 

Ø     The Travel Committee proposed to change the wording of the Librarian Travel Policy and Procedures.  The change was voted for via e-mail and approved by the librarians. 

Ø     Following is the proposal: “The Librarian Travel Policy and Procedures does not clearly state whether visiting librarians are included in the Travel Policy.  As a

result each unit has decided individually whether visiting librarians are part of the travel policy or not. This has led to unequal treatment for visiting librarians.  The Travel Committee proposes to change the wording of the Librarian Travel Policy and Procedures to include visiting librarians. Please see the attached Policy and Procedures with the Travel Committee's suggested change highlighted in red.”

Ø     The updated “Librarian Travel Policy and Procedures” can be found at: http://library.fiu.edu/staff/committees/travel/travel_policy.doc

 

  

Professional Travel Information Sheet

 

Ø     The Professional Travel Information Sheet was altered in response to a request from Jan De Carlo and Miriam John, since it did not provide enough information needed to fill out a TAR.  In particular, the SSN field was changed to Panther ID and the field “Benefit to the State” was added. 

Ø     The updated Professional Travel Information Sheet can be found at: http://library.fiu.edu/staff/committees/travel/travel_sheet.doc

 

 

Travel Committee Membership 2004-2005

 

Ø     Mary Gay Anderson, Sarah Hammill (Co-Chair), Nancy Hershoff, Inna Ilinskaya (Co-Chair), Steve Switzer.