Recent layoffs across Sparks city departments have left 85 people searching the classified ads and crossing their fingers for another job. However, following a unanimous vote by the Sparks City Council Monday, those former employees will need to keep an eye on one more place for a possible job – their old city office. And they can continue hoping for a job for two years now instead of one.

Sparks Civil Service regulations require the city to keep a register of all those who have lost their jobs throughout the past year. According to the regulations, the names on this list have the first right of refusal for their old jobs.

“They have a right to apply for it before someone else,” said Chris Chris Syverson, human resources manager for the City of Sparks. “If they are completely qualified the department has to rehire them.”

If the city does not rehire a completely qualified former city employee, then regulations say that the city must freeze the position.

Before the council’s Monday vote, former employees could claim this right for up to one year after they had been laid off. Now, employees have two years from the time of their layoff to claim an open position with the city.

The change was brought before the coucnil with the blessing of the city’s Civil Service Commission, which was created to “protect employees from discrimination or unfair treatment.”

“It would be a shame to take these people off the list,” said Larry Kleinworth, the commission’s chairman. “They are trained.”

The commission voted 4-1 for the change at their last meeting.

According to Syverson, the change was brought forward at the request of several former employees.

“… It is not foreseeable when the economy will turn around,” Syverson said. “It is foreseeable that they (the laid off employees) might still not have a job in two years.”

So far, the first right of refusal has been claimed by about 7 employees, Syverson said. Two of the laid off employees were rehired when others at the city quit or retired from their jobs.

Five other employees who were laid off claimed their first right of refusal immediately following a round of city layoffs in January.

“Right as we are doing the layoffs there were(five) people who were able to do this without ever leaving,” Syverson said. “This was a case where there happened to be a job in another department (at the time of the layoffs).”

The change in layoff regulation is applicable to any employee who was laid off after Feb. 1, 2009.