System News

              FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
A Quarterly Publication of the State
Universities Civil Service System
As the state university system continues
to function in these uncertain economic
times, our office has experienced an in-crease
in questions regarding non-status
civil service appointments, especially re-lated
to extra help positions, and the indi-viduals
employed in these positions. Even
though our Rules, procedures, and audit
process address this topic, there is certainly
a renewed interest on this matter in light of
the current budget climate and subsequent
staffing reductions. There has even been a
legislative attempt to add a statutory direc-tive
on this topic.
The extra-help employment option, as
outlined in Section 250.70 (g) of the Rules,
has been available for some time now and
essentially affords university system em-ployers
the flexibility to quickly employ
someone in a position, determined to be
casual or emergent in nature, for up to 900
hours, under certain prescribed conditions
and protocols. Naturally, in these budget
times, there has been a decrease in extra
help employment, but there still remains a
very large number of people employed in
these transient positions.
The number of people employed in these
extra help positions tend to fluctuate with
the academic calendar and the overall
employment climate, with relative employ-ment
numbers increasing during the aca-demic
year and as other overall employ-ment
numbers rise. Likewise, the growing
complexity and variance in the funding
resources available to the university sys-tem
employers play an equally direct role
in the number of individuals employed in
these temporary extra-help positions. As
university system employers generate addi-tional
temporary funding sources, employ-ment
in these temporary extra-help positions
may be seen as a preferred option due to the
very short term nature of the funding source.
Whatever the case, there may be some very
legitimate operational arguments justifying
the continued use of this type of appoint-ment.
On the other hand, we have in some in-stances
identified inconsistencies in the ap-plication
of these extra-help employment
protocols. In most of these instances, the
employer has merely failed to continually
monitor the status of the position and spe-cific
job assignments associated with these
positions. When this has been detected, the
employer is typically asked to terminate the
position and develop proper monitoring
protocols to insure consistent application of
rules and procedures in this respect. In
some instances of inconsistent application of
extra-help employment protocols, the em-ployer
has even elected to transition the
position and employee from an extra-help
non-status position to a similar status posi-tion.
Most certainly, the employment environ-ment
at our universities and agencies is
changing every day and the use of non-status
positions, including extra-help ap-pointments,
is one of the many important
topics we need to collectively address. To
some degree, the current rules and proce-dures
do not operationally fit and/or have
lost their intent with respect to individuals
employed into these non-status positions.
We certainly could improve this section of
our rules and procedures to best fit the op-erational
variances found in the current
university system employment environment
and still capture the intention of these Rules
from the employee perspective.
With this in mind, the System Office will
be attempting to facilitate a collaborative
effort to review the rules and procedures
regarding all non-status and temporary
appointments. We will be asking both em-ployer
and employee representatives to
provide additional analysis, input, advice,
and direction on this topic. The System
Office will be creating a statewide commit-tee
to specifically review this topic and so-licit
input from all perspectives. We will
be asking for all ideas and recommenda-tions
to be presented through this estab-lished
committee forum.
Once again, we are excited about the
possibilities and general procedural mod-ernization
this collaborative effort will
bring. We look forward to working with
you on this topic and truly appreciate your
willingness to help with this effort. More
details will be forthcoming on this matter.
Please continue to monitor our website for
updates on this and other System activities.
Respectfully yours,
October 2003 Volume 1, Issue 4
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
2 AAC CONVENES
3 NEW MERIT
BOARD MEMBER
4 WHAT’S NEW
The System News
Illinois’ Public University System Support
Resource and Advocate
Pictured L-R, Merit Board
Secretary Dennis Smith,
Merit Board Chair John
Brewster, Executive Director
Lewis T. (Tom) Morelock and
Merit Board Legal Counsel
Clive Follmer at September
Merit Board meeting.