ARTICLE 29
Legal Research Materials
SECTION 1. In order to provide high quality legal services to agency clients, and to enable attorneys to competently perform their work, Management agrees to make best efforts to provide all attorneys convenient access to the basic legal research materials necessary for the performance of the employees' presently assigned duties and proposed assignments.
SECTION 2.
A. At the beginning of each fiscal year or when NOAA-GC has been provided its final budget for that fiscal year, whichever is later, Management will assign a budget to each GC geographic suboffice where employees work for the purchase of legal research materials. The attorneys in each GC geographic suboffice will make recommendations on how to expend that budget. The budget allocated by Management will be based on the following considerations:
(1) NOAA-GC budget for that fiscal year;
(2) Availability of funds from other sources such as clients or special funds;
(3) Legal research materials already (either hard copy or computer accessible) in each GC geographic suboffice; and
(4) Availability of legal research materials in nearby libraries.
B. For purposes of this section, "GC geographic suboffice" means those offices located in the same building or contiguous buildings (i.e., Silver Spring Metro Center Buildings One through Four) in the same geographic location.
SECTION 3. If budgetary resources are available for this purpose, Management will provide each employee with an annual budget for the purchase of legal research materials specific to his or her own workload, for use at his or her workstation.
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