General Circular No. 001364

To: Heads of State Agencies and Human Resource Directors

Subject: Amendment to General Circular 001361

Issue Date: September 7, 1999

This circular is an amendment to General Circular 001361 issued August 24, 1999 updating Examining policies. In General Circular 001361 we described a new policy whereby employees occupying jobs in the typing career test series (4002) who wanted to promote to general clerical jobs in series 6500 (the old 4000 series) would now have to pass the 6500 COAST test to be promoted. They could no longer be noncompetitively promoted without testing. General Circular 001361 describes the reasons for this change.

However, we realize that there may be personnel actions already in process using the previous policy in which no testing was required. Therefore, in order to smooth the transition to the new policy, we are implementing a grace period. We will allow noncompetitive promotions from typing careers jobs to jobs on the COAST (6500 series) without testing under the terms of our previous policy as long as the effective date of the action is prior to November 1, 1999. If the effective date is November 1, 1999 or later, persons promoting from typing careers jobs on series 4002 to COAST jobs on series 6500 will have to pass the new COAST exam.

The grace period will also apply to promotions to typing career jobs of persons who are no longer occupying typing career jobs and do not have a typing score but who did occupy a typing job for at least 6 months in the five years prior to the promotion. We will be eliminating that testing exemption as well on November 1, 1999.

All other policies described in General Circular 001361 are effective September 1, 1999 as indicated in that circular.

Sincerely,

Allen Reynolds

Director