General Circular No. 001330

To: Heads of State Agencies and Human Resource

Directors

Subject: Proposed Civil Service Rule Change

Issue Date: October 15, 1998

The State Civil Service Commission will hold a public hearing

on Monday November 9, 1998 to consider these proposed changes

to Civil Service Rules. The hearing will be at 9:00 a.m. in

the Commission Hearing Room in the DOTD Annex Building at 1201

Capitol Access Road, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 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, LA

70804-9111.

Consideration will be given to the following:

Reenact Rule 8.9

8.9 Appointment of Eligibles from Certificates

(a) In the filling of a single vacancy from a certificate

of eligibles, the appointment must be made from one of

the top five grade groups.

(b) A grade group shall be considered as a final grade with

at least one available candidate. If a final grade does

not have at least one available candidate, it shall not

be considered a grade group.

(c) In the filling of multiple vacancies from a single

certificate, appointments shall be made singly in

succession. The first appointment shall be made from

the top five grade groups. In the filling of each

successive vacancy, an appointing authority may add one

more grade group to the grade groups considered for the

previous vacancy. When an appointment exhausts the

eligibles from one of the grade groups, an appointing

authority may add one additional grade group for

consideration in the next appointment in addition to

that previously authorized by this section.

(d) An appointing authority may consider as not available

for appointment an individual who is a former permanent

status classified employee who was been previously

dismissed or who resigned to avoid dismissal.

(e) An appointing authority shall determine the effective

date of the appointment, but in no case shall the

effective date be prior to the time the appointee was

eligible for appointment under this rule or prior to

the time the appointee began work. An effective date

later than four weeks following the expiration date of

the certificate must be approved by the Director.

Explanation

This proposal makes three significant changes to the rule of

five:

1. For a grade to be considered a grade group, it must have at

least one available candidate with that grade. This will

usually provide agencies with a few more eligible

candidates to select from. This will also eliminate the

most common misinterpretation of the current rules.

2. If you exhaust a grade group, you may proceed to an

additional grade group with at least one available

candidates to replace the depleted grade. This will

usually provide agencies with a few more eligible

candidates to select from.

3. For each additional vacancy you fill, you may proceed to an

additional grade group with at least one available

candidate. The current rule does not add enough additional

names to be useful in filling multiple vacancies.

This combination will give agencies a small increase in

eligible candidates for the first vacancy. The most

significant contribution is that it makes it more likely that

agencies can use certificates for multiple vacancies.

Sincerely,

Allen Reynolds

Director