Frequently Asked Questions – UCHC

Policy on Consulting for Faculty and Members of the Faculty Bargaining Unit

1. I am not a faculty member or a member of the faculty bargaining unit. Can I consult?

   The University has reserved the word ‘consulting’ for activities being carried out by a faculty member or member of the faculty bargaining unit only and when such work is based on that person’s professional expertise or prominence in a field. Therefore, the Consulting Policy for Faculty and Members of the Faculty Bargaining Unit does not apply to you.

   You may be allowed to be compensated for services rendered while not acting as a State employee provided that you do not violate other rules such as time due to the University. The Office of State Ethics would have jurisdiction over determining if you had a conflict of interest, had inappropriately benefited from your State position, had violated rules on confidential/proprietary information, etc. You could not perform this work on "time due to the University".

2. Can I consult if the activity is not based on my professional expertise or prominence in a field?

   The University has reserved the word ‘consulting’ for activities being carried out by a faculty member or member of the faculty bargaining unit and when such work is based on that person’s professional expertise or prominence in a field. Therefore, the Consulting Policy for Faculty and Members of the Faculty Bargaining Unit does not apply to you.

   See the answer to #1 above.

3. Do I have to participate in this process if I am only a 10%, part-time employee?

   Yes, you must comply with this policy and process no matter what percent time you are employed as a State employee. However, those under contract, personal service agreements, or stipend are not State employees and therefore are not covered under this policy and process.

4. Sometimes offers to consult come without much notice. How can I obtain all the necessary approvals prior to the start of the activity?

   Just like with a last minute grant submission, you may need to walk your request form to all the people who must review, approve and sign it. Once the computer driven on-line approval system is operational, it will include a rules engine that will provide automatic notifications to those who need to review and sign approval forms based on how much time remains before the activity starts and it will allow a requestor to track where in the approval process a particular request is being held up. The latter will enable the requestor to do their own facilitation to ensure approvals take place in time.

5. Does consulting on a Sunday count towards the average of one day a week time limitation? Does consulting in the summer count (for 9 month employees)? Does consulting on a vacation day count?

   The rules for consulting, including the average of one day a week time limitation, apply to any day of the year. Whether all or some of the actual time spent consulting will be on days/times in which you have no University responsibilities (i.e. when you weren’t expected to work) will have an impact on whether you will receive approval to consult and whether it counts to the one day a week limit.

   For times you are not expected to be doing State work, you are not on "time due to University". The most clear examples of this would be formally approved vacation days or during the summer if you are on a nine month contract (i.e. you are not expected to work June – August) and you haven’t been re-employed by the University for this open time. Weekends and nights during the Monday-Friday week are usually not times one is expected to be at work, but that isn’t always the case. Many faculty have formal responsibilities for some weekend days and for some evenings, either on a recurring basis or for special situations (i.e. a mandatory report/grant proposal is due on Monday, which requires working all weekend.)

   Consulting activities preformed on days/times in which you have no University responsibilities don’t count against the average of one day a week limit. Such activities would not interfere with getting one’s assigned duties done since there was no expectation that State work would be performed on such days.

6. When I am at home on-call on nights and weekends, can I do consulting work such as reviewing documents or preparing for expert witness testimony?

   As a general rule, a person cannot be acting as a State employee at the same time s/he is acting as a consultant (which by definition is not acting as a State employee.) This situation of passively being on call (i.e. waiting for the phone/beeper to go off which then triggers actions such as providing advice, coming into work to examine and/or treat patients, tend equipment, etc.) is an exception so long as the consulting work in no way affects the availability of the person to respond to the call or to completely and successfully carry out their on-call duties.