SUE PHILLIPS
WESTFIELD – The Law Department outlined the role of the City Council in resolving civil service issues effecting several municipal departments earlier this week at a session of the Public Health & Safety Committee.
Law Department Supervisor Susan Phillips and Labor Counsel Jeff Krok presented two different avenues of addressing problems some departments have experienced with the civil service process of hiring and promoting individuals.
One avenue of removing positions and employees from civil service is through contract negotiations between the city’s executive branch (the mayor) and the unions representing those employees, Phillips said.
Any agreement between the mayor and the unions would then come to the City Council as a home rule petition to the state Legislature for its approval of changing the civil service status of those positions and employees. Phillips said that in the late 1990s under former City Solicitor Peter Martin that process was used to remove a number of department supervisors from civil service.
JEFF KROK
“There has been a lot of discussion as to whether civil service works for the city,” Phillips said at the meeting Tuesday. “The process of removing people starts with union negotiations. It’s something the executive branch has to put on the table for discussion. The Council has no direct input in (labor contract) negotiations, but would have to vote to send a home rule petition to the Legislature.
“There are really two issues being discussed here. One is removing portions or full departments from civil service,” Phillips said. “The second is changing civil service through the legislative process in Boston.”
Krok said the City Council members should be careful of discussing specifics and what the city would be willing to give the unions in exchange for removing personnel and positions from the civil service process.
“As elected city officials, anything said could be construed as an (contract) offer and if withdrawn, could result in an unfair labor complaint,” Krok said.
DAN ALLIE
At-large Councilor Dan Allie, chairman of the PH&S Committee, said that his goal is to reform the civil service process to make it more responsive to the needs of communities.
“Civil service is bent, if not broken,” Allie said. “Parts of it don’t work at all. I’m trying to make suggestions to the state. Any action (through contract negotiations) has to be initiated by the Mayor, but there may be other avenues to address this through our local representatives in the Legislature.”
Allie had suggested that the City Council, through several committees now reviewing the civil service status, focus on change within the Police Department, Fire Department, Department of Public Works and the Westfield Gas & Electric Department.
Allie said that his concerns within the civil service process “involve testing, providing a list (of candidates for employment and promotion), and hiring in a timely manner” and that the current system has led “to unfilled positions, staffing shortages, overtime, lost funding, as well as other expenses and issues.”
Ward 4 Councilor Mary O’Connell said that the council committees may be overstepping the bounds of their authority. O’Connell suggested a different route to achieve change within the civil service process.
“We could pass a resolution through the City Council which we could send to the state so it could consider these changes,” O’Connell said. “I don’t feel it is under our purview because we can’t vote on any of this.”
