Thought you'd all find this interesting:
JOHN O'LEARY
Civil service rules force bad hires
By John O'Leary | July 7, 2004
AT A TIME when terrorism threatens us, the need for highly skilled police officers is greater than ever. So what do you call a system that makes less able candidates police officers at the expense of those who scored highest on an objective test? Most people would call it foolish. In Massachusetts, it's called civil service.
On a recent civil service exam for Boston Police, 492 candidates scored 95 or above. But only one of these 492 top scorers landed in the first 75 positions on the civil service hiring list. Boston's finest apparently doesn't have room for Boston's best.
Civil service began as a merit-based system to root out patronage and corruption. Candidates took a test, and those with the highest scores went to the top of the list. But this noble idea is almost foreign to the current system. Massachusetts now tests for merit, then ignores the results.
On a recent Springfield police exam, 296 candidates passed. But the top three candidates on the hiring list ranked 172d, 284th, and 241st, on the exam. On the 2,000 Boston firefighters exam, 29 candidates scored 100 percent (or better, with bonus points for experience and education). None of these 29 top scorers was among the top 200 names on the hiring list.
Unfortunately, rather than picking the cream of the crop, communities are often left scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Why are those with such low scores hired? Because Massachusetts hands out a slew of "absolute preferences," which effectively trump test scores, to veterans, disabled veterans, the sons and daughters of police officers injured in the line of duty, town residents, and more. One-third of all hires to the Worcester police force aren't even hired off the civil service exam lists, entering through the cadet program instead.
In contrast to Massachusetts's contorted system of absolute preferences, most other states take the more reasonable course of adding a few points to certain candidates' exam scores, providing a balance between maintaining excellence in the work force and recognizing the sacrifice of veterans and others.
Clearly, how you score on the civil service exam makes almost no difference whether you land a public safety job in Massachusetts. Cities and towns are not even given the candidates' actual scores. And if a municipality doesn't pick from the top of the non-merit-based hiring list, candidates can appeal to the Civil Service Commission.
Many people wrongly assume that racial preferences are the primary culprit undermining merit. They are not. In fact, the rules around hiring sometimes work against minority candidates.
In 2003, Brockton wanted to hire some police officers who could speak Portuguese. The number 6 candidate on the civil service list was a white individual who scored 75. Number eight was a minority candidate scoring 97.
Both spoke Portuguese and were Brockton residents; neither was a veteran. Why would a minority who scored 22 points higher go to the back of the hiring bus? The state was simply following the rules dictated by absolute preferences when it sent out this topsy-turvy list.
The minority candidate is not the only loser; the city of Brockton also loses. Of the 996 police candidates who passed the test, the number six candidate was outscored by 976 of them. So Brockton has someone who barely passed the exam responding to 911 calls, handling evidence in murder trials, and trying to break up gangs.
As bad as civil service is for police, fire, and corrections, it is even worse outside of public safety. The state stopped giving tests for most job titles years ago. As a result, roughly half the civil service work force exists in a bizarre legal limbo as "provisional appointments." Dysfunction is too kind a word to describe the madness and chaos that ensues from applying civil service rules to the non-public safety work force.
Three states -- Georgia, Florida, and Texas -- have eliminated civil service for all but public safety with positive results. Virtually all other states provide only bonus points rather than absolute preference. Both are good ideas.
The civil service laws that govern public sector hiring in Massachusetts are broken. Taking a look at how other states are dealing with this issue would go a long way toward telling us how to fix them. It's time we got to work.
John O'Leary is the former chairman of the Massachusetts Civil Service Commission.
© Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
JOHN O'LEARY
Civil service rules force bad hires
By John O'Leary | July 7, 2004
AT A TIME when terrorism threatens us, the need for highly skilled police officers is greater than ever. So what do you call a system that makes less able candidates police officers at the expense of those who scored highest on an objective test? Most people would call it foolish. In Massachusetts, it's called civil service.
On a recent civil service exam for Boston Police, 492 candidates scored 95 or above. But only one of these 492 top scorers landed in the first 75 positions on the civil service hiring list. Boston's finest apparently doesn't have room for Boston's best.
Civil service began as a merit-based system to root out patronage and corruption. Candidates took a test, and those with the highest scores went to the top of the list. But this noble idea is almost foreign to the current system. Massachusetts now tests for merit, then ignores the results.
On a recent Springfield police exam, 296 candidates passed. But the top three candidates on the hiring list ranked 172d, 284th, and 241st, on the exam. On the 2,000 Boston firefighters exam, 29 candidates scored 100 percent (or better, with bonus points for experience and education). None of these 29 top scorers was among the top 200 names on the hiring list.
Unfortunately, rather than picking the cream of the crop, communities are often left scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Why are those with such low scores hired? Because Massachusetts hands out a slew of "absolute preferences," which effectively trump test scores, to veterans, disabled veterans, the sons and daughters of police officers injured in the line of duty, town residents, and more. One-third of all hires to the Worcester police force aren't even hired off the civil service exam lists, entering through the cadet program instead.
In contrast to Massachusetts's contorted system of absolute preferences, most other states take the more reasonable course of adding a few points to certain candidates' exam scores, providing a balance between maintaining excellence in the work force and recognizing the sacrifice of veterans and others.
Clearly, how you score on the civil service exam makes almost no difference whether you land a public safety job in Massachusetts. Cities and towns are not even given the candidates' actual scores. And if a municipality doesn't pick from the top of the non-merit-based hiring list, candidates can appeal to the Civil Service Commission.
Many people wrongly assume that racial preferences are the primary culprit undermining merit. They are not. In fact, the rules around hiring sometimes work against minority candidates.
In 2003, Brockton wanted to hire some police officers who could speak Portuguese. The number 6 candidate on the civil service list was a white individual who scored 75. Number eight was a minority candidate scoring 97.
Both spoke Portuguese and were Brockton residents; neither was a veteran. Why would a minority who scored 22 points higher go to the back of the hiring bus? The state was simply following the rules dictated by absolute preferences when it sent out this topsy-turvy list.
The minority candidate is not the only loser; the city of Brockton also loses. Of the 996 police candidates who passed the test, the number six candidate was outscored by 976 of them. So Brockton has someone who barely passed the exam responding to 911 calls, handling evidence in murder trials, and trying to break up gangs.
As bad as civil service is for police, fire, and corrections, it is even worse outside of public safety. The state stopped giving tests for most job titles years ago. As a result, roughly half the civil service work force exists in a bizarre legal limbo as "provisional appointments." Dysfunction is too kind a word to describe the madness and chaos that ensues from applying civil service rules to the non-public safety work force.
Three states -- Georgia, Florida, and Texas -- have eliminated civil service for all but public safety with positive results. Virtually all other states provide only bonus points rather than absolute preference. Both are good ideas.
The civil service laws that govern public sector hiring in Massachusetts are broken. Taking a look at how other states are dealing with this issue would go a long way toward telling us how to fix them. It's time we got to work.
John O'Leary is the former chairman of the Massachusetts Civil Service Commission.
© Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
Three different groups (including 2 small groups totalling 10 who just graduated from the Boston Fire Academy in June) have now successfully sued the Boston Fire Department and won their jobs over the past year WITH BACKPAY and SENIORITY. The lawyer who handled those appeals is also suing the Boston Police under the same arguments and has met with some success! Everyone keep your head up: this biased & archaic system will inevitably be changed after more & more cities/towns continue to lose decision after decision and more importantly, $$$$$. That's when we'll all see the change!
