System News

              Civil Service Council orientation sessions
are provided regularly by the System Office
and sponsored by the State Universities
Civil Service Advisory Committee. The
System Office conducts other routine orien-tation
sessions throughout the year that are
open, as designated, to both Civil Service
employee representatives and administra-tors.
FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
A Quarterly Publication of the State
Universities Civil Service System
COUNCIL ORIENTATION MAY 2003
As I look back on my first year as Execu-tive
Director of the State Universities Civil
Service System, I would like to take this
opportunity to convey some personal
thoughts and observations. To say the
least, this fiscal year has been a very unset-tling
budget year for the State of Illinois
and, most specifically, for the university
system. Every state agency and public
university has been significantly impacted
by the current economic climate and
forced to cut valuable programming and
staff levels to accommodate the reduction
in appropriations. Likewise, our office has
been equally exposed to such budget de-clines
and, like most other agencies and
universities, has looked to efficiencies in
operations and staff level reductions to
offset these budget deficits.
Despite these poor economic times, I am
still pleased by the spirit of cooperation we
find throughout the system as we look to
enhance the administration of the classifi-cation
plan and our attempt to generally
modernize the State Universities Civil
Service System. We continue to collectively
and assertively explore the possibility of
consolidating resources to proceed with
some strong worthwhile projects that will
lead to more productive and efficient busi-ness
processes throughout the entire system.
I am personally grateful for this attitude and
admire this type of commitment from so
many within the university system. It is a
testament to our common vision and dem-onstrates
a profound determination and
allegiance to the state public higher educa-tion
system.
Throughout this fiscal year, the poor eco-nomic
climate and declining budgets have
monopolized the state public higher educa-tion
environment and have created some
sense of uncertainty and instability, particu-larly
in the employment arena. In the case
of Civil Service employment, we have seen
some significant reductions in both status
and non-status positions. Our office has
received many questions, from employers
and employees alike, on the basic seniority
rules and the eligibility of employees to re-quest
placement in other positions upon
notification of layoff in their current posi-tions.
The State Universities Civil Service
System Statute, Rules and Procedures af-ford
some options for employees to exercise
their seniority rights in these layoff situa-tions.
We have prepared an article on these
basic seniority and layoff procedures in this
issue of our newsletter. I invite you to care-fully
review this article. Please call our
office if you have any further questions on
this topic.
In spite of these rough economic times, I
still remain very optimistic about our fu-ture.
The attitude of genuine commitment,
dedication, and determination will certainly
carry us through these tough times. We
have learned to do more with less and we
have become more productive, more effi-cient,
and more sensitive to the real needs
of our constituency. As always, these times
will pass and hopefully we will be able to
say, we have become better despite them.
Respectfully yours,
July 2003 Volume 1, Issue 3
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
2 EAC MESSAGE
3 LAYOFF UPDATES
4 QUARTERLY STATS
5 WHAT’S NEWS
The System News
Illinois’ Public University System Support
Resource and Advocate
Illinois University at Carbondale and Ed-wardsville
campuses, University of Illinois
at Chicago, Springfield and Urbana-
Champaign campuses and Western Illi-nois
University.
The orientation provided Executive Di-rector
Tom Morelock the opportunity to
recap the general action plans of the Sys-tem
Office for Fiscal Years 2003 and 2004.
The Executive Director elaborated on sev-eral
initiatives to assist employees and em-ployers
alike in their familiarity with Sys-tem
Office business processes and the ad-ministration
of the many rules and proce-dures
related to Civil Service employment.
Over 50 Civil Service Council members
from various public universities and affili-ated
state agencies were in attendance for
the full agenda of orientation presentations
by System Office managers and staff. The
intent of these orientation sessions is to
routinely update attendees on System Of-fice
activities, the divisions and operational
functions of the System Office, and new
procedures related to the administration of
the Statute and Rules. The full day orienta-tion
session took place at the System Office
on May 21 with attendees from Eastern
Illinois University, Governors State Univer-sity,
Northern Illinois University, Southern
Below, Lewis T. (Tom) Morelock, Executive Director, (left),
and Northeastern Advisory Rep, John Murray (right)