Editorial: You’re fired! Now be gone in two years

Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2004 | 9:09 a.m.

Richard Carpenter, the new president of the Community College of Southern Nevada, speaks plainly about the problems he wants solved. Among them is the rule for firing nontenured administrative employees. The rule was established by the university system regents and therefore is outside of Carpenter's authority to change on his own. The rule entitles the employees to a full year's notice of their impending dismissal. Much worse yet, the year must include a complete fiscal year, which runs from July 1 to June 30. In other words, if an employee is given notice after July 1, it wouldn't officially take effect until the following July 1, meaning he could stay on the job until the following June 30 -- extending his notice to nearly two years. This is time the employee could use to disrupt morale among other employees and to purposely work even more inefficiently or inaccurately. It's also time that the college has to continue paying the employee's salary and benefits.

"It's the most bizarre human resource policy I've ever seen," Carpenter says. "You've got a very unhappy employee who is going to be with you up to two years. They hurt themselves as well as the institution, and nobody wins in that."

Carpenter is right. He's proposing a new, much more sensible policy. Nontenured employees in their first year would receive 60 days notice; those in their second year would get 90 days and those with three or more years in the system would receive notice of 120 days. The notices would be straightforward and not tied to fiscal years. Considering that in the private sector, employees can be, and often are, fired on the spot, the policy is more than generous.

The regents will review the policy at their Oct. 14-15 meeting and decide in December. Regents contacted by the Sun spoke in support of the change. One flaw, however, is that the policy would affect only those employees hired after Jan. 1. This is because there is a fear current employees would sue for breach of contract. In our view, the regents have the power to change rules that have proven to be costly and unworkable. The regents should adopt the proposed policy, and make it applicable to all employees, current and future.