The University Daily
Statues in Jordan KU prof participates in dig Inside, p. 7
KANSAN
SNOW
Vol. 94, No. 76 (USPS 650-640)
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
High, 22. Low, 7.
Details on p. 2
Thursday morning, January 12, 1984
For KU,computer system fails to pay off on payday
Staff Reporter
By ROB KARWATH Staff Renorter
Three years ago the Kansas Integrated Personnel Payroll System was developed.
It seemed a welcome solution to an old problem — a 25-year-old payroll system that had consistently meant paychecks for University employees.
That outdated system, plagued by paperwork problems, fouled up an average of 3 percent of all state paychecks each month. At that time KU officials considered that figure to be inordinately high.
LAST NOVEMBER, KIPPS became a reality at the University of Kansas, but a harsh reality at best. The statewide, computerized payroll system, intended to solve KU's payroll problems, left more than 350 KU employees on the job in 1, and between 800 and 1,100 employees with checks for the wrong amount.
Larry Funk/KANSAN
Those figures indicate that between 17 percent and 21 percent of KU's 6,700 employees received incorrect paychecks or no paychecks at all.
After the initial problems in November, technicians in Topeka attempted to correct the KIPPS computer programs, but in December's payroll more than 100 KU employees had been fired because that many received incorrect checks.
State and University officials are now preparing a list of options to correct the payroll problem, one of which includes sending the customer an email continuing to rewrite the computer
programs in order to accommodate KU's complicated payroll.
DAVID GARDNER, assistant director for information services, said yesterday that among several problems with KIPPS, the biggest was the computer system's inability to handle the complex KU pavllo.
Part of what complicates KU's payroll is the large number of student employees, whose salaries may be financed from a variety of sources, who have a variety of tax-withholding and other taxes that work infrequently or at irregular intervals.
KIPPS provides payroll services for almost 100 state agencies, according to Harold Gibbon, assistant director of accounts and reports. In late November, 15 agencies remained out of the system.
The solution to the University's payroll problems will probably lie in paring down and revising the KIPPS system, he said.
"The only thing that has pretty much been agreed upon is that we are going to have to have a more simplified system for student employees." he said.
Until the system is revised, the university in an awkward position
LAST DECEMBER SOME KU employees found themselves short on money for the holidays. Bills kept arriving on time each month, and, for some, no paycheck arrived to greet them
To help University employees who were running short on money, the Kansas University Endowment Association offered no-interest loans for up to
50 percent of the employee's gross monthly salary. The endowment association later increased that figure to 60 percent of the payroll as the payroll problems persisted.
In mid-December, three disgruntled KU employees filed claims with the Joint Committee on Special Claims Against the State, a committee of regulators for regulation for property damages or personal injury caused by the state.
STATE SEN. WINT Winter Jr., R.Lawrence, and Chancellor Gene A. Budig provided forms for filing claims with the committee.
Winter said that as of yesterday, he knew of three more claims filed in late December and early this month, bringing the total to six.
Also in December, an emergency task force on the KU payroll problems was appointed in Topeka. That task force provided for handwritten checks for employees who either received checks for the wrong amount or did not receive checks at all on Dec. 30, the January payday.
As it turned out, only about 40 handwritten checks needed to be handed out that day because of law enforcement and improvements made in KIPPS.
RUSSELL GETTER, associate professor of political science and head of the emergency task force, said a list of alternatives probably would be presented to KU officials sometime next week.
All of this confusion has left many KU employees — some who still have as
Diane Groh, Huntington Beach, Calif., graduate student, says the KIPPS payroll mix-ups have caused her numerous problems with the University and with creditors.
See KIPPS, p. 5, col. 1
Robert R. Wendall/KANSAN
James Brewer, professor of mathematics, says the KIPPS system foul-ups cannot "go unprotested."
KIPPS hassles beleaguering state workers
By JILL CASEY Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
When Diana Grob went to the Kansas Union this week to buy books, she thought her only problem would be dealing with the confusion and long
But the simple trip to the bookstore was only one more hassle on the list of problems that the Kansas Integrated Personnel Payment System has caused
A bookstore clerk refused to approve Grob's check because her name hadn't been cleared from last semester's bad check list.
"It's very distressing," the Huntington Beach, Calif., graduate student said. "I'm here to go to school, and you can't realize how much time and energy has gone into trying to straighten this thing out."
GROIL, WHO WORKS in the department of chemistry, said that she had been unable to pay her bills regularly since the KIIPFS payroll problems began last month, and that she had not found standing her for money she didn't have.
Those creditors should seek remittance from KIPPS, she said, which has left her without paychecks for three months.
She said that she had been placed on the bad check list last semester because she inadvertantly had written a bad check for $3 to the Union.
The situation was embarrassing, she said, but was just another incident in the city.
See PROFILES, p. 5, col. 3.
Nicaraguans kill U.S. pilot in Honduras
Troops forced copter to make a landing during war games
By United Press International
After the landing the crew came under hostile fire from Nicaraguan troops, which killed one man.
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Nicaraguan troops shot and killed a U.S. Army pilot whose helicopter was forced down yesterday near the tense border with Nicaragua in the first U.S. combat death in Honduras, the U.S. Embassy said.
A U.S. OH-58, a light observation helicopter participating in U.S.-led war games called Big Pine II, made a forced landing on the road in Honduras near the Nicaraguan border.
The pilot was identified as Chief Warrant Officer Jeffery C. Schwab of Joliet, III.
Two U.S. Army engineers aboard the small helicopter were evacuated from the scene, taken to an American hospital, examined and reevaluated, said. It said the engineers were not wounded.
THE INCIDENT, the first of its kind involving U. S. troops in Honduras since the start of the Big Pine series of maneuvers in February, occurred at 8:30 a.m. CST, an embassy spokesman said
Pentagon officials said the helicopter, which carried the markings "JTF" for "Joan Task"
In Managua, Nicaragua, the Sandinista government said reports on the incident were too low.
President agrees to aid request
By United Press International
WASHINGTON — President Reagan yesterday, after accepting the Kissinger commission's report, urged immediate massive aid for Central America to urge "to go to work" on easing the region's crisis.
Reagan appealed to lawmakers not to get bogged down in a dispute over tying American aid to human rights improvements, but "to try to prevent it" would bipartisan way that this commission has."
The 12-man panel, headed by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, concluded in its 125-page report that the military and economic forces under Gustave ackerman that capture a huge U.S. effort was required now.
The group found itself in overall agreement on the prognosis that "there is no time to lose." But Kissinger and two others disagreed with the majority, which said additional U.S. military aid to El Salvador should be directly linked to human rights progress.
Kissinger's faction, calling for a less drastic approach, warned that there was an unacceptable risk in withholding all such aid to Iran, because it could lead to a communist takeover.
- The five countries in the region would
The panel concluded that:
require $24 billion in U.S. and other outside financial help before 1990. About half could come from international institutions, $8 billion from Washington, and the rest would have to come from other countries. The total $1.5 billion in U.S. aid for all Central American nations recommended for fiscal 1984 is more than double the current level. But the $400 million suggested for 1984 military aid for El Salvador would be a sharp hike from the current $50 million.
- It should reject administration assertions that the root of the problem is external
See related story D. 5
subversion, directed by the Soviet Union, and said military, economic and social aspects had to be weighed together. "Discontents are real, and for much of the population conditions of life are miserable; just as Nicaragua was ripe for revolution in the 1970s, when people are present elsewhere in the region as well," it said. But it added that these conditions were exploited by communist forces.
- The emergence of Cuba as a major military power, acting for Moscow and in cooperation with Nicaragua, was a serious strategic threat to the United States, but did not recommend military action against them. The group divided 10-2 on whether the United States should
continue covert aid to Nicaragua's insurgents.
Members Henry Cisneros, the mayor of San Antonio, and Carlos Diaz-Alejandro of Yale University said the CIA operation should be suspended to encourage a negotiated settlement with Managua.
*El Salvador's war was a stalemate that eventually would work in favor of left-wing guerrillas. The commission recommended greater U.S. military assistance, but said the aid should be ended in case of continued gross abuses of human rights, such as death squads backed by Salvadorian military forces. On Nov. 30 Reagan vetoed legislation that would have allowed a politically certifiable progress as a condition of aid to El Salvador. His spokesman said this week Reagan would be "inclined" to reject a return to any such conditions.
- Emergency help was needed for the basic institutions of Central America, including primary education, public health, housing and a workable judicial system. More than 1 million refugees need immediate aid.
"We have a consensus recognition of the urgent nature and complexity of the crisis in Central America," Reagan said. "I believe that the members of Congress, when they study this issue, will believe that we must urgently seek solutions to the problems that are outlined" in the report.
Bill may drown some beer specials
By LORI DODGE
Staff Reporter
Beer-lovers in Kansas may soon be unable to get those great beer specials at their favorite
Although he favors the proposal, State Sen. Wint Winter Jr., R-Lawrence, said the bill faced a tough fight in Topeka because it could not be appealed to raises as to the drinking age.
Those popular "Drink-and-Drown" nights could become victims of a bill to be introduced in the House.
The bill, co-sponsored by State Reps. Vic Miller and Charles Laird, both Topeka Democrats, would prohibit the sale of an unlimited quantity of cereal malt beverages for a set price — a price less than cost — or for free.
"I think it's important for those of us opposed to raising the drinking age to come up with other ways of solving the drinking and driving problems," Winter said.
MILLER SAID I₂. thought the bill would pass with little opposition.
"In my opinion, there's nothing socially redeeming about the practice of drinking alcohols in American restaurants."
Miller said he was not one of the "dry forces" in the capital and did not support raising the rate.
But he said he was interested in finding a more responsible way to solve the problem of
The Rev. Richard Taylor, president of
See DRINK, p. 5, col. 3
Construction of a science library at the University of Kansas may not begin until 1986 if Gov. John Carlin's budget recommendations are approved by the Kansas Legislature.
Carlin's five-year plan for state capital improvements earmarks $277,000 in fiscal year 1986 to begin construction of a science library on the campus of St. Mary's College two years to complete, at a total cost of $13.9 million.
By GRETCHEN DAY
Staff Reporter
Some KU officials and law legislators had expressed hope that the library project would get funding.
State Sen. Wint Winter Jr., R-Lawrence, said that there was a need to move the project's starting date up, and that he would be working toward that goal during the legislative session
"It's very important to continue the edge of excellence KU has worked so hard to build up over time."
Jim Ranz, dean of libraries, he thought that funds for the project were needed this year.
"We'll be out of shelving space within two years," he said. "We're already in deep trouble."
But, he said. "We're going to make every effort to have its progress accelerated.
CHANCLELLOR GENE A. Budig said that he was pleased that the science library was included in the five-year plan and that the library would be an important breakthrough.
"It's an important ingredient for the advancement of high-tech in the state of Kansas. It would be used by many people and many organizations for the betterment of the economy in the state."
STATE REP. JOHN Solbach, D-Lawrence and a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, which appropriates state funds, said, "If we can accelerate the building, I think we should do so."
He said that he would study the issue and appraise the feelings of KU administrators, faculty and students as to the need of the library and the cost of postponing the project.
"But I don't have plans to jump on my horse, draw my sword and charge into trying to change position."
Winter is optimistic that the project can be included in the fiscal 1965 budget. "There's a very real opportunity to have plans approved this year," he said.
Carlin's budget recommendations also include $360,000 for programs improvement funding for KU, which is $1.185 million less than the Kansas Board of Readers' request of $1.545 million.
Budig said that it was difficult to deny that the Regents' request was a reasonable approach to restoring to KU what was lost in the earlier budget rescission.
Included in the Regents' request were provisions for graduate assistants, library acquisitions, additional faculty and staff positions and other instructional equipment.
Stanley Koplik, Regents executive director, said that he was disappointed that Carlin's budget recommendations didn't fully recognize the Regents' request.
He said that the budget met the Regents' top priority of salary increases but didn't provide adequate funds for libraries, equipment and scientific supplies.
See REACT, p. 5, col. 4