By Vanessa Villarreal, USACE Chicago District Public Affairs Office
Twenty-three years ago, the district closed the doors to its Human Resources Office and joined forces with the Civilian Personnel Operating Center (CPOC), a regional office in Huntsville, Alabama.
Daniel Jostes, Human Resources specialist, is a part of Great Lakes and Ohio River Division’s (LRD) Civilian Personnel Advisory Center (CPAC) in Louisville, and works in Chicago. The Louisville CPAC performs certain functions for the units under LRD, with a CPAC liaison collocated at each district.
“Assigned to the Department of the Army Civilian Human Resource Agency (CHRA), the CPAC is a regionalized personnel action center assigned to a specific command or installation,” Jostes said. “The CPAC manages recruit/hires, staffing actions, classification, in- and out-processing, employee relations, and labor relations.”
Jostes says that his actual role with USACE is as a CPAC liaison both to the Chicago District and the LRD Headquarters staff. In addition to this role, he also assists the other LRD CPAC liaisons with labor union business.
“My main role is as an advisor to management and supervisors with the administration of Human Resources regulations and policies regarding programs such as time & attendance, performance management, leave, discipline, and labor relations,” he said. “However, I am also a resource for all employees concerning these programs as well as the point of contact for questions and issues relating to staffing, personnel actions, employee benefits, military veteran programs, the voluntary leave transfer program, use-or-lose leave restoration, and grievance procedures, to name a few.”
As the year is coming to a close, Jostes reminds us that each civilian employee has the responsibility to schedule and use their annual leave over the course of the leave year so as not to forfeit any of it at the end of the current leave year. For the 2020 leave year, the last pay period for civilians ends Saturday, Jan. 2, 2021.
“Any employee with more than 240 hours of annual leave past this date in their leave account will automatically forfeit any annual leave that exceeds the allowed statutory limit,” he said. “If you have any questions about this or anything else in the CPAC program, please reach out.”
Civilian Human Resources news, services, policies, and guidance affecting managers and employees of LRD, can be found at https://usace.dps.mil/sites/INTRA-CPAC/SitePages/LRD.aspx