Report 2016-122 Recommendation 2 Responses

Report 2016-122: California State University: Stronger Oversight Is Needed for Hiring and Compensating Management Personnel and for Monitoring Campus Budgets (Release Date: April 2017)

Recommendation #2 To: University, California State

To improve the oversight of CSU's management personnel, the Chancellor's Office should ensure that its own divisions and departments and campuses create, implement, and adhere to a written merit evaluation plan for management personnel in accordance with state regulations. Furthermore, the Chancellor's Office should monitor its own divisions and departments and campuses to ensure that they are complying with their merit evaluation plans and are granting raises to management personnel only based on merit as evidenced by current, documented performance evaluations.

1-Year Agency Response

On March 26, 2018, the Chancellor's Office issued Human Resources Letter 2018-05 to comply with Title 5, Section 42722 of the California Code of Regulations and require the creation and implementation of and adherence to a written merit evaluation plan. The policy requires campuses and the Chancellor's Office to comply with their written merit evaluation plans and grant raises to management personnel only based on merit as evidenced by current, documented performance evaluations. The policy also requires periodic monitoring and provides a template that may be used for that purpose. In addition, to the extent that monitoring compliance with this requirement falls reasonably within the scope of either a remote or onsite campus review being conducted by a Chancellor's Office division or department, we will include the monitoring in the scope of work.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Resolved


6-Month Agency Response

The Chancellor's Office will remind Chancellor's Office and campus personnel of the requirement in the California Code of Regulations, Title 5, to develop and administer a merit evaluation plan and comply with the plan when granting raises to management personnel; raises should be based on merit as evidenced by a current, documented performance evaluation. Chancellor's Office personnel will conduct a review to determine that the Chancellor's Office and campuses develop and administer a merit evaluation plan. Further, the Chancellor's Office will send an annual reminder that the Chancellor's Office and campuses should adhere to the written merit evaluation plan. The reminder will provide guidance to the campuses for monitoring compliance with the requirement that a documented performance evaluation be on file prior to granting merit increases to management personnel.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Pending


60-Day Agency Response

The Chancellor's Office will direct the campuses to create, implement, and adhere to a written merit evaluation plan for management personnel. In addition, we are developing a methodology to ensure appropriate monitoring by the Chancellor's Office is in place.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending


All Recommendations in 2016-122

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.