Bureaucracy of hiring

Bureaucracy of hiring

Editorial Board

July 14, 2005

The city has been without a permanent police chief or permanent fire chief for more than five months.

That's when Police Chief Wilbur Chapman left under less-than-ideal circumstances and Fire Chief Michael Maglione left honorably to become Waterbury fire chief.

Since that time, Mayor John M. Fabrizi has appointed two longtime department members to serve as acting chiefs and the Civil Service Commission subsequently granted them provisional status as chiefs. It's the provisional status that has generated the most controversy.

Several City Council members, led by Robert S. Walsh, have argued that giving the provisional status to Acting Police Chief Anthony Armeno and Acting Fire Chief Brian Rooney violates the city charter, which they claim limits such appointments to four months a year. They also complain the provisional status increases the acting chiefs' pay level and ultimately will allow them to collect higher pensions. In Armeno's case, they also question his competency to serve due to questions about his past conduct.

"We would like the Civil Service Commission to follow the charter and we think it's pretty straightforward," Walsh said. "The provisional status is being abused. It's like Civil Service doesn't exist anymore - they don't test, they just give out provisional appointments."

Fabrizi counters that Armeno and Rooney are being asked to fulfill the jobs of chiefs and should be paid accordingly, although he chose to pay both of them salaries at the bottom of the allowable scale when he promoted them. "You're working the job, you deserve the pay," Fabrizi said. "You're not getting overtime. You're on call 24 hours a day."

Fabrizi, who served on the city Civil Service Commission for 14 years, said the provisional appointments only lead to slightly higher pay for the two individuals because it means they get paid a higher amount for vacation weeks. He said some of his critics have misrepresented the issue.

City Personnel Director Ralph Jacobs said many provisional appointments have been made in the public safety departments through the years due to litigation that prevented the city from giving civil service tests or promoting people through the traditional channels. "I do think there's a legitimate use for provisional appointments," Jacobs said. "It's very useful when you have a vacancy and want to fill it. We have to keep the organization running."

However, Jacobs said some provisional appointments have lasted too long. "There's supposed to be a limit, and historically in Bridgeport there seems to have been few limits," he said.

Disputing the view of Walsh and some others, Jacobs thinks Armeno and Rooney can serve four months as provisional chiefs per fiscal year, which would allow them to keep their provisional titles until Nov. 1. He hopes permanent chiefs will be hired by that time. Applications are now being accepted for police chief.

The situation with Armeno and Rooney points out a bigger problem. The city's system of hiring police and fire chiefs - in fact, the way government hires anybody, from department heads to entry-level clerks - takes too long, costs too much and often defies logic. While naming a police chief and fire chief is an awesome responsibility, it shouldn't take close to a year to happen and consultants shouldn't have to be paid tens of thousands of dollars to oversee the process. Even the city Board of Education took less time to hire a school superintendent, someone who oversees a larger budget

The city is not run like a business, and probably never will be. It's a fine line between promoting efficiency in hiring and avoiding political favoritism. Allowing public officials to hire anyone, without any rules, often leads to abuse, cronyism and even corruption. But too many rules can stifle the process and lead to bureaucratic selections. The best test-takers don't always make the best employees.

The city needs to form a Charter Revision Commission to consider changing the hiring process and to clarify when provisional appointments are desirable. The system is broken and it needs fixing. Remember, a previous Charter Revision Commission gave the mayor the flexibility of choosing between the top three finalists for certain jobs - and everyone agrees that was an improvement.