KU’s new employee system almost under way

Details are nearly complete on a new employee system for classified employees at Kansas University.

David Shulenburger, provost and executive vice chancellor, said Thursday the university was ready to move forward with the new system, which will for the first time pull KU’s 1,470 classified employees out of the state’s civil service system. But, he said, the new system – called “university support staff” – will be tweaked over time.

“No system is fixed forever,” Shulenburger said. “We’ll work collegially to make changes over time.”

Some members of KU’s Classified Senate have pushed for years for a new employment system, which advocates said would allow the university to provide larger pay increases than have been provided under state control. The Legislature approved a bill allowing such independent systems earlier this year.

But Shulenburger said it was too early to know how much of a raise, if any, workers could expect soon after the plan’s adoption, which is expected during a conference call of the Kansas Board of Regents early next month.

He said he wanted to wait until after the current special session of the Legislature to make sure legislators don’t cut higher education budgets to meet a court order to increase funding for K-12 schools.

Classified workers already received the 1.25 percent pay raise other state employees received as of June 5.

“We’d like to do more,” Shulenburger said. “We’ve got to wait and see what happens in the Legislature.”

At least two important details are left to be determined before KU’s plan is finalized.

Shulenburger said KU officials were working to create different job categories for the new system. The classified system had around 300 categories with little flexibility for pay or changing job descriptions.

He said he expected the new system to have significantly fewer job titles, though the exact number hasn’t been set.

Shulenburger said officials also were working on details of the appeals process for workplace grievances. He said a committee similar to the state’s Civil Service Board would be appointed, though it hasn’t been determined whether that committee will be permanent, or whether it will have authority to make final decisions on appeals.

Mike Auchard, a carpenter and member of the group working on the new employee system, said he hoped the appeals board would be largely made of peer employees, that it would be a permanent group and that it would make final decisions on employment and discipline.

He said he thought the divisions created by the debate over the new system – a first vote on the issue ended in a tie, and a second vote passed with only 54 percent support – had largely subsided on campus. He said it was time to move forward.

“It’s kind of a win-win deal,” he said.