General Circular No. 001360

To: Heads of State Agencies and Human Resource Directors

Subject: Personnel Action Processing Backlog

Issue Date: August 24, 1999

For the past several months, due to staff illnesses and turnover, the Records Section has experienced a steady decline in the turnaround time for approval/recording of Standard Forms 1 (SF-1's), also known as personnel actions. In order to address this problem, we have taken several steps, including overtime and the use of temporary staff. At the same time, we realize that it may take several months to reduce the backlog to normal levels.

We are advising agencies that we will not take exception to employees receiving pay, prior to the agency's receipt of approved Personnel Action Forms (Standard Forms 1) from the issue date of this circular through January 31, 2000. Agencies will be expected to correct actions that have errors and/or which are in violation of Civil Service Rules. If such errors have resulted in overpayments to an employee, the Agency is expected to take steps to recoup any overpayment. This will involve a notice to the employee explaining the error and the amount of overpayment as well as providing them with the proposed repayment schedule, prior to actually reducing the paycheck.

We are asking you to help us by thoroughly checking SF-1's before you submit them, especially in the following areas:

1. Make sure you review your pending actions on an employee prior to preparing another SF- 1 on that individual. We are receiving many forms that we must return because salary, job title, etc. are incorrect due to a pending reallocation, promotion, etc., with a prior effective date, that was not considered when submitting a subsequent appointment.

2. Agencies are entering merit increases although prior actions on the same employee are pending processing. Once again, agency-entered merit increases are processed with the job title and salary on the CS02 record as of that date. If there is an action with an effective date AFTER the merit increase, the job title and/or salary will be wrong on the merit increase. We will have to return the form to you asking you to resubmit the corrected merit increase along with the action.

3. Please check Position Control to insure that funding, object code, etc. are on the position record, especially if it is a new position number.

4. Please make sure the appointing authority's signature is on the SF-1.

5. Please remember that an employee's merit increase, anniversary date, and the date for first eligibility for attainment of permanent status do not always coincide. If the employee was on a restricted and/or multiple restricted appointment before being appointed probationally, he or she will probably be eligible for a merit increase before eligibility for attainment of permanent status.

We have a backlog of approximately 12,000 actions. In order to reduce the backlog, we need your help and understanding. Our Record Processors cannot take the time to call you to correct problems; therefore, we are returning these SF-1's. Also, you can help us by not calling us or suggesting that employees call us to check on individual actions. We know the backlog is causing you serious problems. We will make every effort to get current as quickly as possible.

Your cooperation in the above will be greatly appreciated by the staff of the Records Section.

Sincerely,

Allen H. Reynolds

Director