(a) This article shall govern the Department's program under Government Code sections 19998 and 19998.1 to assist in the job placement of excluded employees who may be facing layoff or demotion-in-lieu of layoff as those terms are used in Government Code sections 19997 and 19997.8. This program shall be known as the State Restriction of Appointments (SROA) Program. For the purposes of this article, an excluded employee is: an employee as defined in Government Code section 3527(b).

(b) It is the intent of the SROA Program, to the extent that it is administratively feasible, to prevent the layoff and separation of skilled and experienced employees from state service.

(c) The SROA Program assists in placing affected employees by temporarily restricting the methods of appointment available to appointing powers. Employees on SROA lists are granted preferential consideration over all other types of appointments except appointments from reemployment lists and mandatory reinstatements.