Policies & Procedures

PA3002.1 Personnel Records Guidelines

SUNY Broome Community College strives to balance its need to obtain, use and retain employment information with each individual’s right to privacy. To this end, it attempts to limit the personnel information maintained to that which is necessary to conduct its business or which is required by federal, state or local law.

1. The Human Resources Office is responsible for overseeing the recordkeeping for official personnel information and will specify how, and what information is to be collected and how it is to be stored and secured.

2. To ensure that personnel file information is accurate, each employee shall be responsible for notifying Human Resources in writing of any changes in any pertinent file information including at least the following:

• Name
• Address
• Telephone number
• Marital status (for benefits and tax withholding purposes only)
• Number of dependents
• Addresses and telephone numbers of dependents and spouse or former spouse (for compliance with insurance regulations)
• Beneficiary designations
• Person(s) to be notified in case of emergency
• Scholastic achievements

3. Employees may review their personnel records (with the exception of pre-employment information). Such inspection must be requested through the Human Resources Office and will be scheduled for a mutually convenient time. All reviews will be conducted in the presence of a designated member of the Human Resources Office.

4. Only supervisory or administrative employees who have an employment related need to know for information about another employee may review the files of that employee. Such review must be scheduled by the Human Resources Office and conducted in the presence of a designated member of the Human Resources Office.

5. Employees are to refer to the Human Resources Office on all requests from outside the College for personnel information concerning employees, past employees and applicants. The Human Resources Office normally will release such information in written form and only with the written consent of the individual involved. Exceptions in the release of information may be made to cooperate with legal, safety and medical officials who have legitimate need to know specific employee information. In addition exceptions may be made to release limited general information such as the following:

• Dates of employment
• Title of position(s) held