The District provides telephones to employees because communication is essential for the performance of their duties, especially in times of emergency or when addressing safety issues.
The landline telephones provided by the district to employees are to be used primarily for school business. Employees may use land line telephones for personal business, provided such personal use is limited in frequency and duration and does not interfere with the performance of an employee’s job. Landline telephones are provided at district expense. Employees are not charged for local calls but are charged for all personal long distance toll calls.
Certain employees are required to perform work outside of their offices or assigned work spaces, outside of the district, or outside of the district’s regular business hours. It is important to the mission of the district to provide for communication with these employees when they are not in their offices. Telephone communication is greatly enhanced by the use of cellular telephones. With a cellular telephone, an employee may receive and respond to calls regardless of the time of day or the employee’s location and retrieve and respond to messages in the district’s voice mail system.
The billing for cellular telephone service includes charge for all calls that are transmitted or received by the cellular telephone, including unsolicited and misdirected calls, and local and long distance calls. Itemized bills are prepared for all cellular telephones listing all calls made or received by a cellular telephone within a billing cycle by date, time, location, and duration. Roaming charges are listed by date, time, location, duration, and roaming service provider. The district’s policy concerning cellular telephones is as follows:
The district will issue cellular telephones for personal calls subject to the same restrictions that are imposed on landline telephones.
If the number of minutes charged to a cellular telephone exceeds the monthly time allotted for the service plan, the employee must reimburse the district for personal calls that exceed the monthly time allotted. The accounting department will send every cellular telephone user a monthly statement. Cellular telephone users must send a check to the Business Office made payable to Interstate 35 Community School District for the monthly fee and any additional personal charges (roaming and excess time). Payment is due upon receipt of the cellular telephone statement.
If a cellular telephone assigned to an employee is lost, damaged or is malfunctioning, the Business Office must be notified immediately. Employees who fail to notify the Business Office immediately of a lost telephone may be responsible for all unauthorized calls made from their assigned cellular telephone.
The district will not reimburse employees for business use of their own cellular telephone. Employees are encouraged to use their office telephone for business telephone calls. Employees who have a personal cellular telephone are not expected to use that telephone for district business.
The Superintendent or his/her designee is authorized to review the use of district-issued cellular telephones by employees and to revoke the privilege of using a district-issued cellular telephone if it is determined that the cellular telephone is being used primarily for personal business or is being used in any other manner which is contrary to district policy.
Approved: November 17, 2008
Revised/Reviewed: January 24, 2022