March 17, 2017 // National Centralized ERR Process Team (NCEPT)
The National Centralized ERR (employee requested reassignments) Process Team (NCEPT) panel met on March 9 to conduct its quarterly meeting (2nd Quarter Fiscal Year 2017). The selections made during this session have been published on the members side of the natca.org website, with the disclaimer that the list does not substitute for an official offer through Human Resources (HR).
HR will be calling employees for a verbal offering and then the tentative offer letters (TOLs) should be generated. If any employees selected do not receive a TOL in that time frame, they should contact their Regional Vice President. Category 1 releases have to occur prior to June 25, with the employee having the ability to push it to Oct. 1, 2017. Category 2 releases have to occur prior to March 4, 2018.
The next NCEPT (3rd Quarter Fiscal Year 2017) will take place on June 14, 2017. The deadline to submit ERR requests for the 3rd Quarter NCEPT is May 15. Fourth Quarter NCEPT will be Sept. 7, 2017.
Here is a breakdown of the selection numbers from the March 9, 2017 NCEPT:
Requests:
- 511 requests from 192 employees
- From 56 Category 1 or 2 facilities
- To 91 possible gaining facilities
Selections: 69
- Category 1: 31
- Category 2: 38
- Terminal facility selections: 59
- En Route facility selections: 10
In addition to the quarterly selections, the NCEPT group addressed some outstanding items and finally reached agreement to make changes that are designed to improve the fluidity of releases and improve the upward mobility through the system. The major changes are described below:
1. Cat 1 and Cat 2 exempt — Under the previous NCEPT SOP (standard operating procedures), no releases were allowed if the loss of a person would drop the facility’s current or projected Certified Professional Controller (CPC)/target ratio below the national average. This resulted in what were termed “Cat 1 or Cat 2 exempt” facilities — where the percentages were above the thresholds defined in the ERR MOU (memorandum of understanding), but no movement could actually occur. The Parties have agreed to allow movement of personnel where a facility could dip slightly below that floor. While initially the NCEPT was focused on those facilities where the CPC target was at or below 15, after further discussions it was agreed that the upcoming changes will apply to all facilities.
Functionally, the number of personnel that might be released by a facility will be gleaned from Column Y of the PPT (priority placement tool). A negative number in that column indicates that a facility may be able to release someone (or several people, based on rounding up to the nearest integer), although any release would still be predicated on the facility being above the national averages for both current and projected CPC/target ratios. For instance, if facility ABC was showing -.3 in Column Y, it may be able to release one person. If facility XYZ was showing -3.8, it may be able to release up to four. The number of releases would be restricted so that a facility would drop only slightly below the national averages. This should result in more movement in the system, and mitigate the number of facilities where there are too many controllers on-board to receive new personnel, but too short to release anyone.
2. Staffing level 9 and below facilities up to 100 percent projected — The NCEPT decided to adopt the process where the panel will consider additional movements between “green” facilities at the conclusion of the NCEPT round so as to try to staff level 9 and below facilities up to 100% projected CPC/target. This has been applied to level 7 and below facilities in previous panels, and expanded to include level 9 and below facilities on a trial basis. Beginning in June, this will be adopted as a standard part of the process. Ideally, this change will help get more personnel into the mid-level facilities and thus promote additional upward mobility.
