Bellone, before State Senate panel, pushes Civil Service overhaul

Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone wants New York State to consider changing the law so that localities can bypass the top scorers on civil-service tests — and exempt certain applicants from needing to take a test altogether.

Testifying Friday in Manhattan before a State Senate committee, Bellone said the changes were needed to diversify the county workforce and to attract and retain talent.

“Reform is essential,” Bellone told the lawmakers, “but we cannot do this alone. We need our partners in the State Legislature to review civil service laws and regulations to identify those that inhibit effective organization management and to work with us to create positive change.”

The hearing was before the State Senate's Committee on Civil Service and Pensions, sitting in Manhattan. Three state senators took testimony.

He added in an interview after: "Overreliance on testing is detrimental." 

Suffolk County government employs about 10,000 workers and administers the civil service system for about 47,000 total jobs in the county, including the towns and villages and other jurisdictions, according to Suffolk’s chief personnel officer, Tom Melito, who testified at Bellone’s side.

The testimony came nearly a year to the day that Bellone fired Alan Schneider, now-former director of Suffolk's Civil Service department, who had the job for about 35 years.

Among the changes Suffolk is seeking, according to Melito, who was appointed Jan. 3:

• A new job classification targeted to college graduates that would be exempt from a civil service test. For example, in the county's 120-person information-technology staff, Melito said he'd like to hire 10 or 15 under the new classification. A person working under the classification would be hired after a provisional period, which he estimated to be two years. 

• "Greater flexibility" in hiring senior managers and executives, without requiring a test or a political appointment. He wants to model the change after the federal government’s senior executive service, he said.

• Expanding "the top selectable candidates" to include the top three scoring bands. Currently, the county must hire the top scorers in the top band. He described this idea as "a little more out there," but said it would "provide an ability to evaluate other qualitative attributes in new hires and those up for promotion, such as professionalism, experience, past performance, education and professional experience, maturity and creativity."

Melito said the changes would cover Suffolk’s direct workforce, but he’d like to expand them to all jobs in the county, including in the other jurisdictions such as towns and villages.

Bellone said in the interview that safeguards would need to be put in place if the system were to move away from a strictly test-based hiring system.

"Look, protecting the integrity of the civil-service system is vitally important, 'cause it is there for a reason. It is there to make sure that we are attracting professionals and not allowing cronyism to creep into the operations of government," Bellone said in the interview. "But at the same time, in a rapidly changing world, we have to make sure that there's flexibility to allow you to attract the talent you need to serve the people."

Melito said hiring was especially challenging for engineers, physicians, case workers and information-technology specialists. 

A phone message left with Daniel Levler, president of Suffolk's largest worker union, the Association of Municipal Employees, was not returned. But a written statement attributed to him by spokesman Michael Skelly said: "Unions have always pushed for and always will push for diversity in hiring but any reforms to civil service must preserve existing core tenets of selecting the most qualified candidates without bias.”

The statement did not say whether the union supports Bellone's proposals.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.