Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1918 [PAGE 660]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

634

BOARD OP TRUSTEES

[February i f (,

cpntractecj with, and have recognized it as a corporate body, authorized under the law to transact the business incident to its charter, arid up until the passage of the amendment in 1911' to the Civil Service act the question never wajs raised as to the authority of the University to employ and discharge its employees without any reference to State control. It is now contended by relator that the employees of the University of Illinois are in fact the en> plpyees of the State and are subject to the provisions of the Civil Service Act, except in so far as Section 11 of the Civil Service Act excludes such employees from the provisions thereof. It is quite probable that at the time of the amendment passed tQ the Civil Service Act that the Legislature hacl the idea that those of the employees not specifically named in Section 11 would by virtue of the passage of said amendment come within tlie provision of said act. However, g, careful reading of the Statute as it now stands will disclose that there is no provision in the statute which expressly brings the employees of the University of Illinois within the provisions of the act, unless it be held that the employees of the University are the employees pf the State/ Section 3, provides among other things that "Said Commission shall within six months after this act goes into effect classify ail the offices and places of employment in the State service, except as provided in section 11 of this act, with reference to the duties thereof, for the purpose of establishing grades and for the purpose of fixing and maintaining standards of examinations hereinafter provided for. Such classification shall include all offices and places of employment now in existence or which may hereafter be created in the State Service of the State of Illinois, except those expressly exempted from the operation of this act in section n hereof." Section 11 undertakes to provide that certain employees of the University of Illinois shall not come within the provisions of the act. Further than this, the act does not go in bringing the employees of the University under the provision of the act. In order, therefore, to hold that the employees of the University of Illinois, shall come under the provisions of the Civil Service act such employees must he held to be employees of the State and in its service. In the case of People vs. McCullough, reported in 254 111., 9, the Supreme Court in passing; on a. petition filed on relation of the assistant chief clerk, the chief incorporation clerk and the bookkeeper in the office of the Secretary of State, praying that a writ of mandamus he issued directed to the Auditor of Public Accounts to issue warrants to petitioners on the State Treasurer for the respective amounts due them upon pay rolls certified by the {Secretary of State for the months of July and August 1911, without the certificate of the Civil Service Commission required by section 31 of the Civil Service law, raisec( the question as to whether the offices filled by these perspns were uncler CiviJ Service, and it was held that they were; that the duties to be performed by them were duties created by the legislature and were not duties, imposed on the Secretary of State by the Constitution. The Court at page 23 says: "The legislature could determine what duties each officer should perform in addition to those specifically mentioned in the constitution, and when, where, how and by what instruments? he