Hiring frozen at CCSN

Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2004 | 10:49 a.m.

CCSN president Richard Carpenter froze hiring Tuesday at all levels of the state's largest higher education institution.

Carpenter announced the moratorium in a memo to faculty and staff as part of his efforts to revamp the Community College of Southern Nevada's hiring mechanisms, policies and procedures.

He said the freeze, which will last at least 90 days, was a necessary to help combat some of the problems at the community college such as nepotism, cronyism and back-door appointments.

"I just want to stop it (hiring) long enough to get some integrated policies in place," Carpenter said.

In the interim, Carpenter said only he will be able to make exceptions to the freeze to hire "mission critical" employees for specific departments. But Carpenter said he plans to be "stingy" and that no administrative employees will be hired. The human resource office will be overseen in the interim by Rand Key, Carpenter's special assistant who came with Carpenter from Wisconsin.

Carpenter said he is now studying the state higher education system's policy of using "letters of appointment" to hire people without a search.

The letters allow college officials to bring someone in on a temporary basis to fill an emergency need, Carpenter said, but he said many of these employees become permanent and he fears it may be a backdoor way to hire people without following policy. He said he expects a full report this week on how pervasive the practice is.