Civil Service

[BASleuth]

The conflict pertaining to procedures to be followed to select public defenders for the Tulsa Municipal Court; Since Nov. 2006 the operating with an "Acting City Attorney" not selected by provisions of civil service; the difficulties of selecting a Chief of Police and the operating with an "acting" director of department of Human Services causes some concern.  

With numerous conflicts pertaining to the provisions of Civil Service found in our Charter, should the entire section pertaining to Civil Service be repealed and the city operate without civil service?

[Wilbur]

quote:Originally posted by BASleuth

The conflict pertaining to procedures to be followed to select public defenders for the Tulsa Municipal Court; Since Nov. 2006 the operating with an "Acting City Attorney" not selected by provisions of civil service; the difficulties of selecting a Chief of Police and the operating with an "acting" director of department of Human Services causes some concern.  

With numerous conflicts pertaining to the provisions of Civil Service found in our Charter, should the entire section pertaining to Civil Service be repealed and the city operate without civil service?

In other words, since we have an administration, who many believe is thumbing their nose at the civil service process, and getting away with it, then we should get rid of civil service?

Civil service was put in place for exactly these reasons.

Never happen.

[RecycleMichael]

Civil service laws and regulations provide certain kinds of employment security to long-term employees. That can be important when elected officials change every two or four years.  

Tulsa's civil service commission has worked fairly for most of my years following the decisions, but they have ocassionally re-instated employees that I would have kept fired in a second.

There will always be turnover in middle management of any 4,000 plus employee size organization. People often spend most of their career moving up the ranks and only spend their last few years as a department head.

Personnel decisions are always the hardest, especially when replacing people who have been in the organization for a long time.

The Mayor will resolve most of the issues you bring up in time. I hope that she is allowed to hire the very best people. Tulsa city government employees need to be the best we can afford and attract  and need to be ready to move the city forward.

The times, they are a-changing. We need the right people ready for change as well.

[BASleuth]

Wilbur:

Fully realize Civil Service was established in our Charter to prevent political patronage, cronyism and the spoils system but it appears the provisions of the charter are not being supported. Thus is it better to have Civil Service on the books and be violated or just repeal Civil Service to where there will not be continual abuse of its provisions?