STATE OF LOUISIANA

DEPARTMENT OF STATE CIVIL SERVICE

BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA

General Circular No. 1500

To: Heads of State Agencies and Human Resource Directors

Subject: Proposed Rule to allow agency-created certificates

Issue Date: September 12, 2002

The State Civil Service Commission will hold a public hearing on Wednesday, October 9, 2002 to consider the following rule proposals. The hearing will begin at 9:00 a.m. and will be held in the Auditorium of the Claiborne building at 1201 Third Street, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

The following will be considered at the meeting:

Current Rule:

1. The Director shall, subject to the Rules, establish eligible lists from the results of Civil Service examinations. Such lists shall contain the names of all candidates who pass the related examinations.

2. Eligibles shall be ranked on such lists in the relative order of the rating, including preference points, if any.

Proposed new rule 7.17(c)

3. The Director may authorize agencies to establish and make appointments from eligible lists for promotions, original probationary appointments and job appointments using guidelines established by the Director. When making appointments from in-house certificates under authority of this rule, agencies shall follow the same procedures as used for Civil Service certificates as described in Rule 8.9 "Appointment of Eligibles From Certificates".

1. Except as provided in paragraph (g) below, and subject to the provisions of Rules 8.9(a) and 8.9(c), each promotion shall be made by appointing one of the eligibles within the five highest final grade groups on a promotional certificate issued by the Director or by an agency as authorized under Rule 7.17(c) following competitive examination; or by the designation of a permanent employee for noncompetitive promotion and authorization thereof by the Director.

2. In preparing a promotional certification from a register of eligibles established following a competitive promotional examination, the Director or an agency as authorized under Rule 7.17(c) shall certify the names of the highest ranking eligibles in the relative order of their standing on the register.

3. In preparing a promotional certification from a register of eligibles established following a competitive promotional examination, the Director or an agency as authorized under Rule 7.17(c) shall certify only those eligibles employed with permanent status within the promotional area established in accordance with the provisions of Rule 7.9(a)(2) of these Rules and shall certify them in the relative order of their standing on the register.

4. The Director or an agency as authorized under Rule 7.17(c) shall not include in any promotional certification the name of an employee having a current official overall Performance Planning and Review rating of "Poor" or "Needs Improvement"; nor shall he authorize the noncompetitive promotion of any such employee.

Explanation: Delegation and local discretion is a fundamental part of the Department’s ASCEND 2020 program whereby Civil Service partners with agencies to fulfill merit system goals in a manner that is more efficient and effective. Part of this program is to move toward a system where applicants apply directly to agencies for each specific vacancy rather than having Civil Service maintain standing registers and issuing certificates with lots of unavailable names. In some cases applicants may be required to obtain Civil Service test or Experience and training scores before applying to the agency. In other cases, agencies may be authorized by the Director to administer an in-house selection procedure to score applicants. In either case, the agency will create its own certificate of the names of persons who apply to that specific vacancy. This will reduce availability problems and speed turnaround time in filling vacancies. Current rules do not allow agencies to create their own certificates or make appointments from them. This rule will provide the necessary authorization.

Persons interested in making comments relative to these proposals may do so at the public hearing or by writing to the Director of State Civil Service at Post Office Box 94111, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 70804-9111.

If any accommodations are needed, please notify the Department of Civil Service prior to the meeting.

Sincerely,

Allen H. Reynolds

Director