09-14-81 Civil Service Commission Meeting minutes

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• Civil Service Meeting September 14, 1981 ~ ~ Page 9 ~~ • that will provide the Chief more flexibility in assigning people ---because if you move a person from one classification to another the only way it can be done is by competitive exam; so the option was to either create a classification called detective, which someone would have to take a promotional exam to make a detective, or make them all patrolmen, and then assign them to investigation or make them all Sergeants and assitn them to investigation. So in looking at that, the option of making them detectives did not seem like a good idea because of having to give a promotional examination, and that is kind of a specialty area where you can assign someone there, maybe because of a particular interest or expertise, rather than give a promotional exam. Also because of the size of the department, being as small as it is, there will be some classifications that is going to be difficult to get enough together to take the test. And so, we've ended up with two options; one is to make them all patrolmen or make them all Sergeants. If we made them all patrol- men, some of them would not receive any salary increase because their salary falls between a patrolman and a Sergeant, and so the option was to go ahead and make them all Sergeants, and that way he can move those people between patrol or criminal investigation, depending on the needs of the department, just by assignment. He can assign a Sergeant to criminal investigation or he can assign them to patrol. Randall: In your pay status, Herb, do you have a set policy with duty of service in your promotional, I mean as far as advancements in pay? How does that work in the department? ~• Freeman: We have a step program with the City that's------ Hudgens: Yeah, the current pay schedule on all the employees is based on merit. In other words, when you come in, the City currently has a policy that says you serve a 6-month probationary period so everybody comes in and then their given a set range, a step, and after 6-months their eligible to go to step 'b', assuming they satisfactorily complete their probation, then there's one year between each of the following steps where they become eligible for a merit increase to the next step provided their performance is satisfactory. Randall: In other words, you sort of have wage progressions and then your merit takes over and---- Hudgens: --the wage progression is based on merit and one of the problems we ran into with this was that Civil Service says not merit; it says everybody in the same classification will be paid the same salary and they may be paid in addition thereto any longevity pay, seniority pay, certification pay, etc. which they may be entitled. So what we did--we kept a step system but we based it strictly on longevity. We'll have a patrolman that has under 6 months service or until he completes the academy, which ever is later on this thing. When he comes in, he'll start at a certain salary, and when he completes the academy then he'll get a step increase. Once he goes over a total of 12 months service, he'll get another step increase; then over 24 months; then over 36 months, and then they top out at 36 months. The same thing would be for Sergeants and Lieutenants, with the exception that they won't have the 6 months deal; theirs would be a year, over 12 months, over 24 months, over 36 months.