The Office of the State Auditor recently released a performance audit of state agency and Board of Education compliance with performance evaluation requirements. The report identified two key findings: that entity compliance with performance evaluation rules varies widely and that some state entities do not adequately use available Department of Human Resource Management resources.
The Utah State Personnel Management Act separates civil service positions within the state into two schedules: A and B. Schedule B is the competitive career service schedule, which includes “all positions filled through competitive selection procedures.” The Department of Human Resource Management is statutorily tasked with establishing a career service system designed to effectively implement employee retention of high quality employees. Additionally, Department of Human Resource Management rules require that all career service employees receive a performance evaluation each fiscal year. State entities subject to Department of Human Resource Management rules are required to use the Utah Performance Management System for career service employee performance plans and evaluations. The Department of Human Resource Management is also required to maintain an electronic record of each employee’s information, which includes their performance ratings.
For the five most recently completed state fiscal years, state entities varied widely in their documented compliance with the state administrative rule. The Office of the State Auditor found sufficient performance evaluation documentation for approximately 69 percent of all employees tested across 25 state entities during this test period. Specifically, of the 14,585 career service employees tested, the office found sufficient documentation for performance evaluations for only 10,044.
Department of Human Resource Management rules require state entities to use The Department of Human Resource Management’s Utah Performance Management system for employee performance plans and evaluations. Some entities seemed unaware of this requirement. Others explained that certain “completed” employee evaluations were not finalized in the Utah Performance Management system, which serves as the official record for all employee information, including human resource actions and historical performance evaluation data.
The report is available online.
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