Whenever it becomes necessary to terminate staff exempt or staff non-exempt employees because of a curtailment of operations or lack of funds, the following procedure must be followed:

1. The employees affected by a reduction in force should be given as much notice as possible. The department involved in a staff reduction should notify UTSI Human Resources Office of the jobs and incumbents involved. Every effort will be made to consider the affected employees for other campus openings before the succeeding steps of reduction in force, outlined below, are applied.
2. Probationary and temporary employees within the department must be laid off before regular employees, if retained regular employees are qualified to assume the duties of the laid off employees.
3. The order in which employees are laid off shall be in reverse order of seniority within the affected job classifications within the department, if the retained employee is qualified to perform the duties of a position to be continued by the department. Seniority shall be established based on continuous service credit within the University (see Human Resources Policy and Procedure No. 310, Continuous Service Credit).
4. The Associate Vice President of UTSI shall have the prerogative of making an exception to the order of layoff described in item 3 above in cases where employees with marginal job performance, as documented through performance appraisal and other means, have greater seniority than employees with good performance.