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Policy 4-005: Use of Personal Telecommunication Services

  1. Purpose & Scope
    1. The purpose of this policy is
      1. To outline the appropriate use of University owned wired and cellular telephone services and,
      2. To establish methods by which an employee may be reimbursed for employee owned cellular phones and services used in conducting the business of the University.
    2. This Policy applies to all employees of the University of Utah.
  2. Definitions
    1. Cellular Access Plan means a commercially provided cellular service offering that may include voice, text, and data services.
  3. Policy
    1. The University owned telephone systems and equipment are provided for the conduct of official University business. Use of these facilities for personal business should be kept to a minimum.
      1. Long Distance and other Toll calls for private business made through the University telephone system should be charged to the individual's home telephone or personal calling card. If this is not possible, a record of private calls made at University expense must be kept and repayment must be made upon receipt of the department's telephone bill. Supervisors are responsible to prevent abuse and ensure that repayment is made.
    2. If an employee requires a cellular phone in order to perform the employee's duties, the employee, with approval of the department head, may obtain a personal cellular access plan and cellular phone and may be reimbursed from the University for the business use of such services. The reimbursement must be justified by business requirements which necessitate the use of a cellular telephone to perform official University business where such business cannot be accommodated by the use of a landline phone, pager, or other less expensive communication device. The cellular telephone is owned by the employee and may be used for personal business. The approved reimbursement amount must be based on business usage. The employee may, at their own expense, elect to purchase additional service(s). Approved procedures must be followed when providing a reimbursement for this purpose. (Rule 4-005A)
      1. The employee must provide documentation of business use and expense in the form of a billing statement from the employee's cellular service provider. Such documentation must be provided annually.
      2. The employee's supervisor will maintain the documentation of business use and expense, and will perform an annual review of the documentation provided by the employee to ensure that the reimbursement amount does not exceed the amount necessary to reimburse the employee for the business use of the cellular services.
    3. University departments may elect to purchase and own cellular telephones for employee business use, if there is a business reason to do so. Examples of business reasons that may justify department ownership of cellular plans and cellular telephones include but are not limited to:
      1. A department may determine that acquiring pooled or shared minute plans may result in savings to the department.
      2. Departments may have a need for temporary cellular phone use such as assignment of on-call responsibilities.
      3. University owned cellular telephones should not be used for more than de minimis personal business. Any personal use resulting in incremental charges shall be reimbursed to the University. Employees who misuse University cellular telephones may be subject to disciplinary action.
    4. Employees shall not use cellular telephones to conduct the business of The University of Utah while operating a motor vehicle. This includes telephone conversations, reading or responding to email or text messages, browsing the world wide web, social networking, or any other distracting or dangerous behavior.
      2. [Note: Parts IV-VII of this Regulation (and all other University Regulations) are Regulations Resource Information – the contents of which are not approved by the Academic Senate or Board of Trustees, and are to be updated from time to time as determined appropriate by the cognizant Policy Officer and the Institutional Policy Committee, as per Policy 1-001 and Rule 1-001.]
  4. Rules, Procedures, Guidelines, Forms and other related resources
    1. Rules
      1. Rule 4-005A: Reimbursing Employee Mobile Communication Costs
    2. Procedures
    3. Guidelines
      1. G4-005A: Departmentally Provided Cellular Phones
    4. Forms
    5. Other related resource materials
      1. Cell Phone Reimbursement Form
  5. References
  6. Contacts:
    1. The designated contact officials for this Policy are:
      1. Policy Owner (primary contact person for questions and advice): Deputy Chief Information Officer
      2. Policy Officer: The Chief Information Officer
    2. These officials are designated by the University President or delegee, with assistance of the Institutional Policy Committee, to have the following roles and authority, as provided in University Rule 1-001:
    3. "A 'Policy Officer' will be assigned by the President for each University Policy, and will typically be someone at the executive level of the University (i.e., the President and Cabinet Officers). The assigned Policy Officer is authorized to allow exceptions to the Policy in appropriate cases.... "
    4. "The Policy Officer will identify an 'Owner' for each Policy. The Policy Owner is an expert on the Policy topic who may respond to questions about, and provide interpretation of the Policy; and will typically be someone reporting to an executive level position (as defined above), but may be any other person to whom the President or a Vice President has delegated such authority for a specified area of University operations. The Owner has primary responsibility for maintaining the relevant portions of the Regulations Library... .[and] bears the responsibility for determining -requirements of particular Policies... ." University Rule 1-001-III-B & E
  7. History
    1. Renumbering: Renumbered as Policy 4-005 effective 9/15/2008, formerly known as PPM 2-70.
    2. Revision History:
      1. Current version: Revision 4 Effective date April 12, 2011
        1. Presented for the information of the Academic Senate: March 7, 2011
        2. Approved by the Board of Trustees: April 12, 2011
          1. Legislative History of Revision 4
      2. Editorially revised February 25, 2022 to replace gender-specific pronouns.
      3. Earlier versions:
      4. Revision 3: Effective dates December 12, 2005 to April 11, 2011.
        1. Approved: Board of Trustees November 15, 1996.
        2. Editorially revised: December 12, 2005

Policy: 4-005 Rev:4
Date: April 12, 2011
Last Updated: 2/25/22