Posted: | January 18, 2018 09:43 AM |
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From: | Senator Mike Folmer and Sen. Randy Vulakovich |
To: | All Senate members |
Subject: | Civil Service Commission Reforms |
In 2016, we introduced legislation that was signed into law as Act 69 of 2016 to bring some modest modernizations to the Pennsylvania Civil Service Commission by allowing them to:
The full Senate also amended a House bill that was signed into law as Act 167 of 2016 to:
The goal of these changes was to better meet the needs of the Commission’s customers: people seeking employment with the Commonwealth – especially veterans. Unfortunately, neither of these laws have been implemented, which has led us to the conclusion the Civil Service Commission itself needs to be streamlined. With this in mind, we will be introducing legislation to move the following responsibilities from the Civil Service Commission to the Commonwealth’s Office of Administration:
Merit-based hiring would not be affected under this legislation. Agencies would continue to hire individuals based upon their qualification. Also, agencies and professions currently covered by merit hiring would continue to be subject to merit hiring. Under our legislation, the State Civil Service Commission would retain its current organizational structure with an executive director. The Commission would also maintain jurisdiction over appeals from employment decisions, including authority and responsibility to:
The latter is to provide checks and balances relating to the transfer of merit-based hiring and employment from the Civil Service Commission to the Office of Administration. THERE WILL BE NO CHANGES TO VETERANS’ PREFERENCE UNDER THE MILITARY CODE (Title 51)! Many of these changes are not new and have been offered in previous legislation. The changes we are proposing are supported by both the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs and the Office of Administration. We hope you will join with us in sponsoring these much needed and long overdue Civil Service Commission reforms. |
Introduced as SB1037