Filling Critical Vacancies

Due to a drop in state tax revenue collections, Governor Perdue announced several revisions to his budget recommendations for fiscal year 2009. This was followed shortly by a communication from the Office of Planning and Budget requesting state agencies to achieve budget savings by maintaining vacancies in non-critical positions and reducing expenditure of state funds for non-essential items (travel, etc.) in anticipation that the state revenue picture might worsen over the coming months.

On March 21, Thomas Hills, the state’s Chief Financial Officer, and James Lientz, the state’s Chief Operating Officer issued a directive and a set of guidelines to all state agencies to limit hiring only to mission critical positions. 

In response, University System of Georgia Chancellor, Erroll B. Davis, has asked all institutions to implement a formal process that would parallel the one being used by the state of Georgia.  It is his expectation that we act in accordance with the spirit of the Governor’s effort to slow spending.

Effective April 1, 2008, MCG's hiring procedures have been modified to comply with this new directive. We will continue to use the Employment Request and Faculty Employment Request forms to initiate the process of filling vacant positions.  However, departments will need to complete a brief cover memo - one for non-faculty positions that will require the cabinet member’s approval or one for faculty positions that will require both the cabinet member’s and Provost’s approval - to justify the position as being “mission critical”.  William Bowes, MCG’s chief finance officer, will be required to sign all position requests. 

Links to the official process and sample forms are shown below. 

Your support and assistance will be critical to demonstrate that we can manage this effectively at the institutional level.

Filling Critical Vacancies: Request and Approval Process.

• Critical Hire Approval Process
• Request to Fill Critical Faculty Vacancy Memo
• Request to Fill Critical Non-Faculty Vacancy Memo
• Request to Fill Temporary Position Memo
• Request to Fill Critical Temporary Agency Hire Memo
• Employment Request Form (Classified and Temporary Positions)
• Faculty Employment Request Form