The State Board of Technical and Adult Education shall develop and implement a policy which provides for an orderly and fair process to be used in the event any reduction in force becomes necessary. The reduction in force policy shall provide that:

(1) Presidents of state technical institutes shall devise a plan for a reduction in force for their respective institutions;

(2) Any reduction in force within an institution shall be limited to that institution;

(3) The institute president shall decide the competitive area and competitive group to which any reduction in force is applicable;

(4) All individuals within a competitive group will participate in the reduction in force process, regardless of whether they are in the classified or unclassified service, tenured or nontenured;

(5) The State Board of Technical and Adult Education shall prescribe the basis for determining retention credits which shall be uniform among all state technical institutes;

(6) Plans describing the process by which a reduction in force would be conducted within each state technical institute shall be approved by the State Board of Technical and Adult Education; and

(7) Any employee of a state technical institute who believes the approved plan for that institution was not followed shall have the right to appeal to the State Board of Technical and Adult Education, and the decision of the board shall be final.