The following substantive changes to Chapter 16 of the DC Personnel
Regulations, General Discipline and Grievances, were published in
the Notice of Final Rulemaking at 49 DCR 11781 on December 27, 2002.
The entire chapter is available
online.
General Discipline (§§ 1600 - 1619)
Applicability of Discipline Rules to At-Will Employees
The provision which stated that at-will employees could
be "subjected to any or all" of the measures in §§ 1600
through 1619 of the rules has been deleted. (§ 1601.1)
Timeframe for the Issuance of the Final Decision in the Case
of Summary Discipline - Summary Suspensions and Summary Removals
The final decision in the case of summary discipline shall be rendered
not later than 45 days from the date of delivery of the summary
suspension or summary removal notice (exceptions are noted).
For all other disciplinary actions, the final decision must be rendered
at the earliest practicable date. (§§ 1614.3, 1614.2)
Basis for Placing an Employee on Enforced Leave
While it should have been clear from the law and the original rules
that an employee may only be placed on enforced leave if at least
one of the conditions for proposing such action has been met at
the time the action is proposed, the rules were amended to state
this more clearly. Specifically, for enforced leave actions based
on the conditions described in § 1615.1(a) or (c) of the regulations,
the agency must have a good faith belief that any of the
conditions stated therein are met after reviewing and considering
the information contained in affidavits, legal indictments, charges
or complaints, arrest records, or other documents or other credible
information, before proposing the placing of an employee
on enforced leave. (§ 1615.3(a))
For enforced leave actions based on the conditions described in
§ 1615.1(b) of the regulations, the agency must have obtained
official documentation such as affidavits, legal indictments,
charges or complaints, arrest records, or other documentation to
support that any of the conditions stated therein are met, before
proposing the placing of an employee on enforced leave. (§
1615.3(b))
Basis for Taking Summary Discipline
As in the case of enforced leave, it should have been clear from
the law and the original rules that summary discipline is appropriate
only when at least one of the conditions for taking such action
has been met at the time the summary action is taken. Nevertheless,
the rules were amended to state this more clearly. Specifically,
the rules now state that an agency may summarily discipline an employee
only if at the time the summary action is taken, a good faith
effort has been made to determine that at least one of the conditions
for summary discipline specified in the rules is met, and only
if the action is taken for cause pursuant to § 1603 of the
regulations. Otherwise, the employee shall be entitled to an
advance written notice as specified in § 1608 of the regulations.
(§§ 1616.2, 1617.2)
Timeframe for the Issuance of Written Summary Action Notice
The rules were amended to specify that the summary suspension or
summary removal notice, as applicable, must be provided to
the employee against whom summary discipline was taken within
three (3) days of the summary action. (§§ 1616.4,
1617.4)
Grievances (§§ 1630 - 1637)
Employees Excluded from the Grievance Provisions Pursuant to
Chapter 16
Employees in the Legal Service and the Management Supervisory
Service were added to the list of employees excluded
from coverage under the grievance provisions pursuant to Chapter
16. (§ 1630.2)
Changes to the List of Non-Grievable Matters
Four (4) previously non-grievable matters were deleted from the
list in the chapter.
Agencies 