Budget and Control Board Policy Notice
Use of State Government Telephone Services
The Budget and Control Board has issued new statewide regulations which establish the proper use of South Carolina state government telephone services. The intent of these guidelines is to permit South Carolina state government employees to make reasonable use of state government telephone systems and simultaneously, to guard against abuse of telephone usage. This policy is effective as of December 13, 1998.
The use of state government telephone services is limited to official business. It is a violation of State law (Section 16-13-400) to abuse State Telecommunications services. In addition to official business calls, the Budget and Control Board will consider the following nonbusiness telephone calls as being allowed within this policy:
- Calls to notify the family, physician, etc., when an employee is injured on the job.
- Calls to notify family of a schedule change when an employee traveling on state government business is delayed due to official business or a transportation delay.
- An employee, traveling in the United States for more than one night on state government business, makes a brief call to his or her residence (averaging not more than one call per day).
- An employee is required to work overtime without advance notice and calls within the local commuting area (the area from which the employee regularly commutes) to advise his or her family of the change in schedule or to make alternate transportation or child care arrangements.
- An employee makes a brief daily call to locations within the local commuting area to speak to a spouse or minor children (or those responsible for them, i.e., a school or day care center) to make certain of their well-being and/or safety.
- The employee makes brief calls to locations within the local commuting area that can be reached only during normal working hours, such as a local government agency or a physician.
- An employee makes brief calls to locations within the local commuting area to arrange for emergency repairs to his or her residence or automobile.
B&C Board Policy
- A call that reasonably could not be made at another time if it is of moderate duration and it does not adversely affect the performance of the state telephone systems (e.g., unauthorized calls, made in rapid successions, to call-in contests on radio stations are detrimental to telephone system service levels).
Personal calls that must be made during normal working hours may be made over the commercial long distance network if the call satisfies the guidelines in Section 1 and one of the following provisions:
- It is charged to the employee's home telephone number or other non-state government number.
- It is made to an 800, 877, or 888 toll-free number.
- It is charged to the party being called if it is a non-state government number.
- It is charged to a personal credit card.
