The Council of University Planning and Budget’s meeting Friday brought legislative discussion of the cuts Eastern may receive in their funding this year. They also discussed how strategic planning is moving along to develop a five-year plan for the university.

Derek Markley, employee of presidential operations, said senate bill 512 will be proposing a change in the university’s pension plan.

“They’re doing this because as soon changes are made and brought into scope, there will be questions about constitutionality,” Markley said.

Pension reform is being pushed in Springfield, but the employees of Eastern have to allow the lawyers to do their job, Markley said.

Employees have the option of staying on the same plan as they originally paid for, but if they do this, they will have to pay an annual rate of 20 percent.

They also have the option of signing up under the new plan, which goes by the hire date of Jan. 1, 2011, or moving money into a 401K.

However, these effects will not start until next year.

“It’s been out there for a long time. No one has moved on it,” Markley said. “No one has said this is what is going to happen.”

Humana and Health Alliance have protested the procurement positions in Springfield, according to Markley.

The two organizations have never handled an appeal and have a new procurement process.

“One of the ideas about what would happen is that they would extend the current contract with Health Alliance and Humana for an undetermined length of time to accommodate the appeal process,” Markley said.

Markley further went on to discuss the tuition wavers that are soon to be a pilot program for students of middle-class families.

“It covers up to $2,500 for students from middle-class families who are defined by the financial aid office,” Markley said.

The bill has been passed through the senate.

“The speaker’s office suggested an amendment which we thought we could live with so we’re hopefully going to get our reading and our vote on the house floor in the next couple of weeks,” Markley said.

William Weber, vice president of business affairs, said the Strategic Planning Committee has reviewed the data from the strategic engagements they have completed on- and off-campus.

“We overwhelmed our consultants,” Weber said. “They had never seen a group do so many engagement sessions in such a condensed amount of time.”

In total, the Strategic Planning Committee completed 63 sessions with around 950 participants.

“That was about 50 percent more than our consultants were expecting us to do,” Weber said.

The Steering Committee reviewed the data and compiled six themes that all the groups had in common. These groups will be reviewed over the summer and brought to the fall conference where they will develop a vision for the campus.

One universal commonality among all the groups was the fact that Eastern has small class sizes and faculty interaction, Weber said.

The committee is expected to submit their plan to Eastern’s Board of Trustees at their January 2012 meeting.

Roger Beck, professor of history, said he was impressed by how well the information was put together.

“I was especially impressed by what the students submitted,” Beck said. “They really had some interesting insights and original ideas.”

Beck said they identified a lot of things the university can do to improve campus-wide, and marketing the university is something they discussed.

“We get in there and put in the extra effort even though we’re getting less funds,” Beck said. “Part of this marketing is to turn it around and make it more about excellence and small class relationships.”

Jennifer Brown can be reached at jebrown2@eiu.edu