The Office of the State Auditor released A Performance Audit Of State Agency And Board Of Education Compliance With Performance Evaluation Requirements.
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 (DHRM) is statutorily tasked with establishing a career service system designed to effectively implement employee retention of high quality employees. Additionally, DHRM rules require that all career service employees receive a performance evaluation each fiscal year. State entities subject to DHRM rules are required to use the Utah Performance Management System (UPM) for career service employee performance plans and evaluations. DHRM is also required to maintain an electronic record of each employee’s information, which includes their performance ratings.
The report identified two key findings:
Finding 1: Entity Compliance With Performance Evaluation Rules Varies Widely
For the five most recently completed state fiscal years, state entities varied widely in their documented compliance with the state administrative rule. We 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.
Finding 2: Some State Entities Do Not Adequately Use Available DHRM Resources
DHRM rules require state entities to use DHRM’s Utah Performance Management (UPM) 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 UPM, which serves as the official record for all employee information, including human resource actions and historical performance evaluation data.
The report may be found on the Office’s website, auditor.utah.gov. The report is available specifically at
http://financialreports.utah.gov/saoreports/2017/PA17-01PerformanceEvalReqStateofUtah.pdf .
