STATE OF LOUISIANA
DEPARTMENT OF STATE CIVIL SERVICE
BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA
February 2, 2006
General Circular
No. 001647
To: Heads of State Agencies and
Human Resource Directors
Subject: Proposed
Amendment to Rule 17.8 Furlough Without Pay
Issue Date: February 2, 2006
The Civil
Service Commission will consider the following amendments to Rule 17.8 at its
meeting on March 8, 2006.
When an
appointing authority determines it is necessary to furlough employees in order
to avoid or reduce layoffs, his request is subject to the following:
(a) No change
(b) No change.
(c) No change
(d) When the Commission
or Director determines that extraordinary circumstances exist, they may approve
an extension of furlough beyond 450 hours.
If any employees are recalled during this extended furlough period, the
employee with the most state service for a given job title shall be recalled
first. If such position requires
specific licensure or certification the employee with the most state service
who meets those requirements shall be recalled first.
Following
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, agencies have needed to use the furlough without
pay as a mechanism to remove employees from their payrolls until such time as a
formal layoff plan could be submitted, approved and implemented. Current rules
impose specific time limits on the number of hours an employee can be
furloughed. We have found that, under
the current extraordinary circumstances, these limits do not always allow
adequate time to implement the formal layoff process, particularly with regard
to notifications and displacement offers.
An emergency rule to address this matter was passed by the Civil Service
Commission at its January meeting.
We now propose
this addition to the layoff avoidance rules on a permanent basis. The goal is to implement any necessary
layoff as rapidly as reasonably possible without the potentially unrealistic
time constraints required by the current rule.
Extensions beyond 450 hours would be approved only under conditions that
the Commission or Director has determined to be extraordinary and would be
approved for the shortest possible period of time. Because this rule would be an addition to the existing layoff
avoidance measures, the Director would have the authority to approve,
disapprove or refer plans directly to the Commission for consideration under
Rule 17.2(a). Our intent is that the
Director could grant approval to a request for extension under the new rule
only for the period of time prior to the next regularly scheduled Commission
meeting. The Commission could approve
any further extension.
The rule
requires agencies using the extraordinary furlough extension to recall
employees on the basis of seniority. The only exception to the seniority basis
for recall would be if a particular position required a specific license or
certification. In such a case, the most
senior employee possessing that requirement would be recalled first.
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 P.O.
Box 94111, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70804-9111.
If any
accommodations are needed, please notify us at (225) 342-8272 prior to the
meeting.
Sincerely,
s/Anne S.
Soileau
Acting Director