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Editor's Note: Whether you are a public school district or a junior college district, the following remarks by a practicing attorney are designed to help you avoid costly legal battles. All of the remarks are inspired by actual costly legal battles that educators or college administrators easily could have avoided.
Handbooks and Websites and Policies of Employment... A Safety Net or a Snare?
It is never too late to conduct a careful review of your employment policies. If you are thinking to yourself, “Why should I - that's the Human Resource Department's job!”… Think Again!
Most schools and colleges have excellent legally defensible published employment policies. These policies appear in a variety of places. The trouble, however, is that often some published policies simply don't match the policies that appear in other places. Websites, employment contracts, employment handbooks and department or division handbooks often contain provisions concerning leave and overtime, employee benefits and grounds for termination of at-will employees that differ profoundly from the wording of published employment policies. Even if each source is itself defensible, the problems presented by such conflicts are enormous.
But do not despair! The starting place for a proper analysis of this problem is in anything that discusses payment of wages, leave, overtime and employee benefits. Actually, the primary offending sources are generally not published sources, but rather are found at the division or department level. Those need to be reviewed, revised or preferably even discarded so that all departments have identical wording. This analysis in all but the largest of schools or colleges actually does not take very long once the offending documents have been located. You may be surprised to see a document still in use at the department level that is twenty years old!
In your every professional adventure we wish you the very best.
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This information is
provided by Laura S. Fowler, Attorney at Law with
The Fowler Law Firm PC. It is not intended as a
substitute for careful review by legal counsel of
your choosing. We would be most honored to assist
you in your every real legal need.
Contact Laura
Fowler at lfowler@thefowlerlawfirm.com
or
call (512) 441-1411.
As with any legal
issues, please consult your attorney with
questions.
