Last week, the Civil Service Commission came before the City Council and requested that we reinstate $350,000 of the budget we slashed from the Commission.
Okay. Let’s first discuss what Civil Service is. Civil Service was established at all levels of government to set up a system by which individuals are hired on the basis of merit through the use of competitive examinations. Additionally, Civil Service serves as an appellate body — it hears the appeals of government employees who have been disciplined or fired.
Civil Service was started in the 1800’s because a disgruntled speech writer, Charles Guiteau thought he should be given an ambassadorship when Garfield was elected. When he was denied the patronage, he shot Garfield. Senator Pendleton introduced the legislation to remove patronage from federal jobs.
The concept of removing political patronage from government jobs spread to state and local government.
The citizens of Long Beach liked the concept of removing politics from city jobs and passed an amendment to the City Charter establishing a Civil Service Commission.
This Commission of 5 appointed citizens has a staff which conducts the testing and recruitment and arranges for the hearings. Non management jobs are covered under the civil service system. Applicants must take tests and those who are qualified are placed on an eligibility list. Managers wanting to fill a position must choose a candidate from the list.
Complaints about the civil service system is that it is cumbersome and managers can’t just pick anyone they want to fill a job. They also can’t just discipline or terminate an employee without having to answer to an appeals body. Taking politics out of government jobs does bother some.
Most cities in California have a Civil Service system and a Human Resources Department. HR takes care of management level employment issues, benefits, etc.
I have to admit I participated in the vote during the budget process to take 60% of the Civil Service Commission’s budget away in hopes that it would spur them to become more efficient…and quite frankly I wanted to give the Mayor the benefit of the doubt about his decision.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. The cuts were made without any reason or justification which should have made me wary. That being said, I voted to make the cuts.
Last week the Civil Service Commission came before the Council and asked for $350,000 to be restored because they felt the cuts were too severe and would harm the Commission’s ability to perform its charter required duties.
The City Attorney did warn the Council that we cannot simply cut the department so severly that it prevents the Commission from doing its job. And no, we can’t merge the two entities (HR and Civil Service) together.
Councilwoman Uranga made a motion, which I seconded, to restore at leat $150,000 to the Commission. It failed.
I will say what I said during the meeting: if the intent was to eliminate the Civil Service Commission, then let’s be honest and put the issue on the ballot and let the voters decide.
Oh and by the way. In the 2 years I have been on the council, I have never seen a city department/entity put through the ringer as was done to Civil Service. We either need to do the same with each and every City department or fess up what the real agenda was in cutting their budget.