Category Archives: staff

Reminder From HR About CTO Maximums

Benefits, CTO, For Staff, staff

The maximum amount of CTO (combined time off) that can be carried into the next fiscal year is capped at 24 days (see table below for maximum hourly equivalents).  Any CTO in excess of 24 days will automatically be transferred into your SLR as of June 24, for pay period 13 (6/6/16 – 6/19/16).  Please plan accordingly. In order to avoid confusion and ease planning for employees, the CTO max is applied to the last full pay period in June.

Throughout the year each employee is responsible for managing his/her CTO amounts within the applicable limits. Remember, if you allow your balance to reach maximum during any pay period except the final one of the fiscal year, your excess accrual does not automatically transfer to SLR –instead you will stop accruing and forfeit the un-accrued CTO time.  Now is a good time to check your CTO balance in BannerWeb or a recent paycheck stub and plan your CTO use for the next few days and the upcoming fiscal year accordingly.

You may also transfer your own CTO at any time. When you report your time via BannerWeb, enter the number of hours you wish to transfer on the web time sheet in the row titled “Transfer CTO to SLR.”

CTO Maximum Amounts

Date CTO Maximum in Days CTO Max. in hours for employees w/ scheduled 8 hour days CTO Max. in hours for employees w/ scheduled 7.75 hour days
As of the last full pay period of June. 24 192 186
Any other time 36 288 279

Coffee and Water Contracts

Faculty, For Faculty, For Staff, Purchasing, staff

The Green Mountain Higher Education Consortium (GMHEC) members Champlain College, Middlebury College, and Saint Michael’s College, are continuing efforts to obtain cost savings for the three institutions while adding benefits for all. Recently, GMHEC went through a request for proposal for coffee and condiments.  We received four proposals. After reviewing and vetting the proposals through a detailed process, we awarded the contract to W.B. Mason.  This is the same company which was awarded the GMHEC Office Supply contract last year.

The contract gives Middlebury at least 15% savings on coffee and up to 58% on condiments with a 2 year price guarantee.  For example, K-Cups cost only $10.24 per box and renting Keurig coffee machines (K140s and K150s) is free. Using W.B. Mason for both Office Supplies and Coffee/Condiments will simplify ordering for you and streamline the payment process for Accounts Payable.

To order coffee and condiments, please visit the W.B. Mason website. The pricing is reflected on the website. If you do not have a W.B. Mason account yet – please contact Matt Curran who will set you up with an account. Please refrain from ordering coffee and condiments (unless you order for dining) from other vendors such as Crystal Rock, Costco, Walmart, Amazon, etc.

To rent a coffee brewer, contact Jarrod Pulsifer, our W.B. Mason account executive, with information on which brewer you would like, the INDEX to charge it to, and the exact location where it will be (address, room number). It usually takes 3-5 business days to get the brewer installed.

For water coolers, the College is staying with Misty Meadows to support a small, local, family-owned business. If you need a plumbed-in water cooler, W.B. Mason is the vendor of choice though as Misty Meadows does not provide them (and your contact is Jarrod Pulsifer). For Misty Meadows contact information see the Purchasing website.

Please be mindful of the College’s policy that these types of items are only allowable with advance approval from your supervisor per the College’s handbook.

Open Enrollment

Benefits, Faculty, Flex, For Faculty, For Staff, Health Ins, HR, staff

Open Enrollment for Middlebury’s 2016 Health & Welfare Benefit Plan is being held from November 1 – 14, 2015.  All benefits-eligible employees are required to complete the open enrollment process within this time period even if they do not intend to make benefit changes for 2016.

Open enrollment is your opportunity to:

• Continue your current medical, dental, or vision elections into the new year OR add coverage for yourself and/or dependents OR terminate your own or your dependents’ coverage.
• Continue your current voluntary life and/or accidental death and dismemberment coverage for the new year OR increase OR decrease the amount of existing coverage in these plans.
• Enroll in the health care and/or the dependent care flexible spending account(s) for next year. If you do not make an FSA election, you will not be contributing for 2016 even if you participated in 2015.  For Q&A’s on the Health Care FSA rollover click here.

Open Enrollment must be completed, using Banner Web, between November 1 – 14, 2015.  Benefits eligible employees will be able to access the open enrollment module from any computer with internet access.

Getting Started
1. Access the Open Enrollment System:

• Click this link: http://go.middlebury.edu/bannerweb OR
• On the bottom right-hand corner of the Middlebury homepage http://www.middlebury.edu/  click “Quick Links” and then “Banner Web”

2. Enter your Banner Web User ID (your Midd ID number) and your PIN and click “Login”.
3. Click “Employee”, then “Benefits and Deductions”, and then “Open Enrollment”.

2016 Premium Rate Chart

Benefit Refresher Meetings

Benefits, Faculty, Flex, For Faculty, For Staff, Health Ins, HR, staff

3 Sessions remaining for this round of benefit refresher meetings.  More Benefit Refresher meetings will be scheduled in 2016 to review other benefit topics.

Do you have questions about your Middlebury College employee benefits?  Has it been a while since your Benefit Orientation? Unsure if Flexible Spending is right for you? Come join your Faculty and Staff colleagues at a Benefits Refresher Open Meeting where we will review highlights of the Medical, Dental & Vision plans, Flexible Spending Accounts and Voluntary Life and AD&D.  We will also leave time for your questions.

Refresher courses will be held on:

  • Monday, November 9th, 1:30-2:30, on-line*
  • Tuesday, November 10th, 4:00-5:00, on-line*  – New session added
  • Wednesday, November 11th, 3:00-4:00, Crest Room, Middlebury Campus

Please register for the course by clicking here so we know how many snacks to bring.  We’re looking forward to seeing you there.

* On-line refresher meetings will be conducted using Adobe Connect.  A link to the meeting will be sent out to enrollees on morning of the session.

Academic Roundtable – Microaggressions, Trigger Warnings, Campus Climate, and the Classroom

Faculty, For Faculty, For Staff, staff

Please join us on Tuesday, November 10, 2015, in the Center forTeaching, Learning & Research, LIB 225 at 12:15 PM.

How do recent debates and discussions on campus and in the national press around the topics of microaggressions and trigger warnings impact what happens in our classroom? How do we identify microaggressions that may have made their way into our speech patterns? How do we decide whether or not to issue ‘trigger warnings’ in advance of dealing with potentially difficult topics in our classrooms? Join us for discussion of these important topics. Miguel Fernandez of the Spanish & Portuguese Department and Acting Chief Diversity Officer and Allison Stanger of the Political Science Department will offer some preliminary perspectives to help frame our discussion. You are encouraged to read in advance the following articles that help illuminate the contours of the national debate on these subjects.

The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt

What Is the Point of College? By Kwame Anthony Appiah

Lunch will be provided. RSVP to Doreen Bernier via email at dbernier@middlebury.edu by 5 p.m. Friday, Nov. 6, 2015.

Open Enrollment

Benefits, Faculty, Flex, For Faculty, For Staff, HR, staff

Open Enrollment for Middlebury’s 2016 Health & Welfare Benefit Plan is being held from November 1 – 14, 2015.  All benefits-eligible employees are required to complete the open enrollment process within this time period even if they do not intend to make benefit changes for 2016.

Open enrollment is your opportunity to:

• Continue your current medical, dental, or vision elections into the new year OR add coverage for yourself and/or dependents OR terminate your own or your dependents’ coverage.
• Continue your current voluntary life and/or accidental death and dismemberment coverage for the new year OR increase OR decrease the amount of existing coverage in these plans.
• Enroll in the health care and/or the dependent care flexible spending account(s) for next year. If you do not make an FSA election, you will not be contributing for 2016 even if you participated in 2015.  For Q&A’s on the Health Care FSA rollover click here.

Open Enrollment must be completed, using Banner Web, between November 1 – 14, 2015.  Benefits eligible employees will be able to access the open enrollment module from any computer with internet access.

Getting Started
1. Access the Open Enrollment System:

• Click this link: http://go.middlebury.edu/bannerweb OR
• On the bottom right-hand corner of the Middlebury homepage http://www.middlebury.edu/  click “Quick Links” and then “Banner Web”

2. Enter your Banner Web User ID (your Midd ID number) and your PIN and click “Login”.
3. Click “Employee”, then “Benefits and Deductions”, and then “Open Enrollment”.

2016 Premium Rate Chart

Benefit Refresher Open Meetings

Benefits, Faculty, Flex, For Faculty, For Staff, Health Ins, staff

Do you have questions about your Middlebury College employee benefits?  Has it been a while since your Benefit Orientation? Unsure if Flexible Spending is right for you? Come join your Faculty and Staff colleagues at a Benefits Refresher Open Meeting where we will review highlights of the Medical, Dental & Vision plans, Flexible Spending Accounts and Voluntary Life and AD&D.  We will also leave time for your questions.

Refresher courses will be held on:

  • Wednesday, November 4th, 12:30-1:30, Crest Room
  • Friday, November 6th, 8:30-9:30, Crest Room
  • Monday, November 9th, 1:30-2:30, on-line*
  • Wednesday, November 11th, 3:00-4:00, Crest Room

Please register for the course by clicking here so we know how many snacks to bring.  We’re looking forward to seeing you there.

* On-line refresher meeting will be conducted using Adobe Connect.  A link to the meeting will be sent out to enrollees on Monday (11/9) morning.

Save the Date – Open Enrollment November 1st-14th

Benefits, Faculty, Flex, For Faculty, For Staff, Health Ins, HR, staff

Benefits Open Enrollment is being conducted electronically again this year.  You will be receiving an e-mail (ooa Oct 30th) detailing our 2016 benefits as well as step-by-step instructions on how to enroll using BannerWeb.  Human Resources will gladly help you through the process; if you have questions please call x2320.

All benefits eligible Faculty and Staff are required to complete Open Enrollment between November 1st & 14th.

Flexible Spending Accounts – it’s not too early to start calculating your 2016 annual election.  Per federal law, this year’s annual limit is $2,550 (plus you may roll up to $500 of unused 2015 Health Care FSA funds into your 2016 account).  If you will have large medical expenses next year (orthodontist work, laser eye surgery, etc.) you should make sure you know how much your out of pocket cost will be for these services before Open Enrollment starts.

For additional information on Flexible Spending Accounts, including a Planning Worksheet visit the Flex Spending webpage.

For Questions and Answers regarding the Health Care FSA rollover click here

Reminder from HR About CTO Maximums

Benefits, CTO, For Staff, staff

The maximum amount of CTO (combined time off) that can be carried into the next fiscal year is capped at 24 days (see table below for maximum hourly equivalents). Any CTO in excess of 24 days will automatically be transferred into your SLR as of June 26, for pay period 13 (6/8/15 – 6/21/15). Please plan accordingly. In order to avoid confusion and ease planning for employees, the CTO max is now applied to the last full pay period in June.

Throughout the year each employee is responsible for managing his/her CTO amounts within the applicable limits. Remember, if you allow your balance to reach maximum during any pay period except the final one of the fiscal year, your excess accrual does not automatically transfer to SLR –instead you will stop accruing and forfeit the un-accrued CTO time. Now is a good time to check your CTO balance in BannerWeb or a recent paycheck stub and plan your CTO use for the next few days and the upcoming fiscal year accordingly.

You may also transfer your own CTO at any time. When you report your time via BannerWeb, enter the number of hours you wish to transfer on the web time sheet in the row titled “Transfer CTO to SLR.”

CTO Maximum Amounts

Date CTO Maximum in Days CTO Max. in hours for employees w/ scheduled 8 hour days CTO Max. in hours for employees w/ scheduled 7.75 hour days
As of the last full pay period of June 24 192 186
Any other time 36 288 279

See the Power of VSP Benefits

Benefits, Faculty, For Faculty, For Staff, HR, staff

Get great eyewear brands at low cost.

Seeing your local VSP provider for your annual eye exam is the perfect time to shop designer frames or stock up on contacts. Want to shop before visiting your VSP doctor or just prefer to buy eyewear online? You can go to the VSP store, eyeconic.com.
Your VSP benefit gets you a great deal on high-quality eyewear at your VSP practice or Eyeconic™. How about a pair of Nine West frames (NW5062–the snappy blue ones) with standard prescription lenses?

  • Retail price:   $133
  • VSP benefit:  $140*
  • Your price:     $0**

Put your VSP benefit to work for your eyes!