November 7, 2001

Re: State Imposed Hiring Freeze

Many of you may have already heard or read about the actions being taken in response to Governor Davis’ request that the University of California and the California State University join State government in implementing a hiring freeze. In response to the Governor’s request and UC President Richard Atkinson’s directives, UCLA Chancellor Carnesale instituted an immediate campus-wide hiring freeze on all career and limited appointment positions. This hiring freeze applies to the UCLA Hospital System, including Westwood, Santa Monica and Neuropsychiatric hospitals and UCLA Primary Care Network with the exemptions and waivers described below.

The effective date of the freeze is November 1, 2001. However, the hiring freeze will not apply to positions that are critical to patient care and waivers may be applied for other non-patient care positions that are deemed to be critical to the delivery of services. Open jobs will be reviewed to determine whether (1) the position falls into the exempt patient care category or (2) a waiver should be granted for a non-patient care position that is critical for the UCLA Hospital System.

The financial circumstances that the State and the University find themselves in are to be taken very seriously. However, I want to assure you that an appropriate balance will be maintained between the need to support the University’s mandated hiring freeze and the Hospital System’s need to provide ongoing quality patient care.

Sincerely,

Michael Karpf, M.D.
Vice Provost, Hospital Systems
Director, Practice Plan Operations