Travel Committee Charge
The Professional Development Travel Committee (PDTC) is charged to make recommendations on, define the distribution method for, and oversee allocation of funding for professional development travel. The Committee elects its chair annually, and follows a fair and open methodology for nominating new members to overlapping 3-year terms. If a member is elected Chair in his/her third year, his/her term will be extended to a fourth year so that an experienced Past Chair will be available to the Committee. Membership consists of both faculty and support staff.
Applications for travel budget funds are to be evaluated by the PDTC. Allocation will be made according to the provisions of the employee development handbook. The PDTC is charged to communicate with library directors, department chairs and the library Business Office to assure proper administration of the travel budget. This includes monitoring the base budget and noting any funds not used on a timely basis. Those funds may be reassigned at the discretion of the committee.
The committee shall present proposals for improvement and revision of the allocation method for professional development travel to the Library Council for approval and subsequent action each year in May.
Travel Committee membership 2006-7
Colleen Seale, 2008, Chair
Peter McKay, 2007, Past Chair
Paul Losch, 2009, Chair Elect
Barbara Gundersen, 2007
Raimonda Margjoni, 2008
Priscilla Williams, 2009
Trudi DiTrolio, ex officio
Barbara Oliver, ex officio
The base PD travel budget for the 2006-2007 academic year is $60,000. The discretionary PD travel budget for the 2006-2007 academic year is $10,000.
Methodology
1) The general allocation formula implemented in 2004-5 remains unchanged.
2) The Committee has a base budget of $60,000 for professional development travel plus a $10,000.00 discretionary fund to be used for items such as: Pre and Post conference registration, unanticipated or unexpected travel, funding multiple trips (See number 6 below), and travel funding for new employees. The goal of the discretionary fund is to provide consistency throughout the system.
3) That money allocated to an individual for travel, but not used, will be returned to the Committee for reassignment. Under Peoplesoft, the Chair of the Travel Committee (rather than the Department Chair) will need to approve all staff development travel.
4) Unencumbered money left in the Discretionary Fund on May 15 will be transferred to the general library staff development fund. Any unused or unencumbered funds left in the account on June 15 will be transferred to the Library General Budget.
5) Untenured faculty on the tenure track will not be limited in the number of trips for which they can be funded (assuming they have approval from the Department Chair and Division Director).
6) Travel requests should be submitted to the Department Chair by August 1st. By August 15th the Department Chair in conjunction with the Division Director should assign each request to a funding category and forward the requests to the Business Service Office. By September 15 all employees will be notified of their travel funding.
