ILLINOIS STATE Senator Chapin Rose (R-51st
Decatur) recently introduced Senate Bill 1724, which has prompted concern among
Academic Professionals and human resources managers at UIC. If approved, the
bill would change the composition of the Civil Service Merit Board. The
proposed legislation gives the Governor authority to appoint new members to the
Board, and to terminate the terms of current members.
THE NEWLY appointed members would include four
individuals exempt from Civil Service, four Civil Service employees of State
universities, and three members who are representative citizens and who are not
current or former employees, or current or former members of the board of
trustees of a state university. The bill would impact all State universities. Currently,
members of the Merit Board are appointed by their respective university
governing boards.
OTHER PROVISIONS of the bill include a change to
exemption authority. In the proposed legislation, exemption authority is
returned to the executive director of the State Universities Civil Service
System (SUCSS), Urbana, and cannot be delegated otherwise. The bill also allows
the SUCSS executive director to determine the Designated Employer
Representative (DER) for each campus. At the present time, the DER is
determined by the University president.
REMOVING EXEMPTION authority from the campus and giving
exemption authority to SUCSS could impact the efficiency now experienced by
conducting the analysis on a local level. Sending each new position to the
SUCSS office for a determination could impact the ability of UIC human
resources to respond in a timely manner. The SUCSS office is comprised of fewer
than 15 individuals.
MANY ACADEMIC Professionals at UIC, some of them HR
managers, are very concerned that the hiring process will become more onerous
and lengthy, according to Colleen
Piersen, APAC
interim chair, assistant head for administration, Department of Medicinal
Chemistry and Pharmacognosy. The reason: SUCSS
staff cannot be expected to understand the intricacies of all the principal
administrative positions at all state universities.
“APAC BELIEVES that Academic Professionals fulfill vital and unique roles in coordinating and synthesizing various functions within and across units at UIC,” Piersen said. “The retention of exemption authority by the campus is critical to its ability to hire Academic Professionals who address an ever-changing balance of teaching, research and service priorities. In effect, SB 1724 legislation threatens the ability of UIC to react nimbly to external forces or take advantage of time-sensitive opportunities.”
REMOVING EXEMPTION authority would have an enormous impact
on UIC and the entire Illinois university system, agrees Maureen M. Parks, associate vice president,
University Human Resources, University of Illinois. “There are 20,000 Civil Service employees
in the State of Illinois. There is no way the Civil Service system could review
every position open at UIC, every time an opening comes up, and make a decision
on whether it should be a Civil Service position or exempted. All state
universities would be negatively impacted.”
SENATOR ROSE introduced the bill because he wanted
to “start the conversation” about changes that need to take place in higher
education, according to Parks who met with the Senator earlier this year. Rose
did not respond to this reporter’s request for an interview.
“WE DO need Civil Service reform,” Parks explained. “The Civil
Service system, developed in the 1950s, is very complex and many of the procedures
are not modern best practices in HR recruitment. However, SB 1724 would make
things worse. The goal of Civil Service is to serve State universities; this
bill would do a major disservice. It would actually increase costs for State
universities.
“I EXPLAINED that to Senator Rose and I believe we
had an eye-opening conversation,” Parks added. “He was surprised to learn that
there currently are not any SUCSS Audit guidelines or a structured audit time
frame. Instead, the Civil Service office decides how long the process takes.”
THE UNIVERSITY’S human resources directors have been
talking to Tom Morelock,
executive director of SUCSS, for eight years about changes that need to be made
to modernize the system, Parks added. “In the fall of 2014, UIC’s HR directors
sent him a formal document specifying five changes that need to be made. That
document is now being reviewed.”
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