General Circular No. 001291

To: Heads of State Agencies and Human Resource

Directors

Subject: Appeals Information Now Available On Open

Issue Date: July 29, 1997

Information about public investigations and appeals to the

State Civil Service Commission is now available through OPEN.

The Appeals System currently contains information about all

appeals and investigations filed since January 1980 and

approximately 1000 decisions. More records and decisions are

being added as time permits.

To access the Appeals System, select Option 8 from the Civil

Service OPEN System Menu. From the Appeals System Inquiry Menu,

select "1" to view information by name or "2" to view

information by docket number. Each docket number is a separate

record and each record consists of two screens of information.

You can view the whole record (Option 5), or a summary of the

record (Option 8), or the decision (Option 9). Information

about applications for review and appeals to the courts is

noted in Remarks on the second screen of information in the

master record (Option 5). In the future we hope to present this

data in more detail, on a third screen.

Names are listed alphabetically. Nearly all of these are

appellants. The exceptions are:

"-C" following a name means the person is the complainant in

an investigation

"-R" following a name means the person is the respondent in

an investigation

"-X" following a name means the person is an extra party to

an appeal, meaning the person has a direct interest in

the outcome of the appeal, such as the person who got

the promotion being challenged, etc.

There is no on-line help for this system. The system was

developed with the idea of it being self-explanatory. The only

real oddity occurs when you place your option selection in

front of an extra party's name (in an appeal) or a respondent's

name (in an investigation). When you view the record, the extra

party's name will show up where the appellant's name should be

and the respondent's name will show up where the complainant's

name should be. This is temporary; when you exit the record,

the names go back where they belong. (This was the easiest way

to be able to include the names of complainants, respondents,

and extra parties in the alphabetical list of names.)

All of the information before Docket No. 11473 was obtained

from a previous automated system, NOT directly from the files.

So, if information was entered incorrectly in the old system,

the error has been picked up in the new system. When you

discover mistakes about critical information (such as the

appellant's name, the appellee, or the final disposition), call

the Appeals Division to get it corrected.

The older the case, the less information is available. For

example, for older cases, we did not capture whether a decision

was on a procedural issue, or on the merits, or whether the

hearing was a limited or full hearing. These records will

contain entries of "HEARD-SCOPE UNKNOWN" and "DECIDED-SCOPE

UNKNOWN". Also, in older cases, we did not even capture which

Referee heard the case, so the record will say the case was

assigned to "REF."

The Appeals Division updates every day, but only posts "sure

things." For example, if an appeal is set for hearing and

there are rumors of a settlement or a continuance, the current

status of the case will remain "SET FOR HEARING" until the

continuance is actually granted or the settlement is approved.

What this means is: for pending appeals, the Appeals Division

may have more information than appears on the screen. When in

doubt, call the Appeals Division.

If you have questions about the system or suggestions for

improvement please call the Appeals Division of the Department

of State Civil Service at (504) 342-8070.

Sincerely,

Allen H. Reynolds

Director