Contracting For Covered Services

UC Irvine will utilize its employees to perform Covered Services to the greatest extent possible before resorting to the use of contractors to provide such services (See Article 5 University Collective Bargaining Agreement and Regents Policy 5402: Regents Policy Generally Prohibiting Contracting for Services). As such, contracts that include covered services will only be allowed sparingly and will require demonstration that all other options to utilize or create career UC positions have been exhausted. 

Request for Carve Out

Exemptions to the policy will be rarely granted. Reduced cost is not an acceptable justification. By requiring wage and benefit parity in any contract for covered services, there will be no cost advantage to using contracted services in lieu of services provided by a UCI employee.

Regents Policy 5402 explains that contracting for covered services is only permitted when:

• Required by law, grants and/or court decisions.
• Needed to address an emergency.
• Not available at the location in sufficient quantity or expertise level.
• Incidental to a leased property.
• Urgent, temporary or occasional.
• Securing equipment, material, or services the campus cannot feasibly provide, this can include work beyond 10 miles of campus.
• Performed in clinical operations to address short-term needs.

California Senate Bill 820 (SB820) imposes additional restrictions beyond Regents Policy 5402 and Article 5 for contracting out for certain covered services in buildings that have received capital state funding. Each year UC is required to legally certify that during the subsequent fiscal year all cleaning, maintenance, groundskeeping, food service, or other work traditionally performed by persons with University of California Service Unit (SX) job classifications, shall be performed only by employees of the University of California at each beneficially affected facility, building, or other property. There are no exceptions, carve outs, or any other workarounds in this law.

Requests for SX covered services in identified SB820 buildings MUST be serviced by UCI SX employees. Contracting out requests in SB820 buildings will be denied. Failure to comply with SB820 may cause the UC System to lose critical, invaluable state capital funding. Please review the UCI SB820 buildings as of June 30, 2024.

To request Enterprise Workforce Relations review and approval, please complete and submit the Rationale for Contracting Covered Services form. Should you have any questions, please contact Enterprise Workforce Relations (EWR) directly at ewr@uci.edu.