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New Hometown Advantage Weighed In City Hiring

by Melissa Bailey | Feb 7, 2012 1:52 pm

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Posted to: City Hall

Melissa Bailey Photo A proposal to add points to a civil service exam may make it easier for New Haveners to get jobs—or it may undermine the whole purpose of the exams.

Those two views emerged as aldermen Monday night unanimously approved a proposal calling on the city to double the number of residency points awarded to New Haveners who apply for civil service jobs in city government.

The proposal would build on work begun in 2006, when the city agreed to give New Haven residents an extra five points on civil service exams. That applies to everyone from entry-level firefighters and cops to deputy department directors—all civil service positions, except those tested by promotional exams.

Aldermen propose raising the residency benefit to 10 points, provided that applicants can prove they’ve lived in the city for two years. The bill isn’t binding—it’s a resolution directing the Civil Service Commission to change city policy accordingly. Click here to read the resolution, which all 30 aldermen introduced and approved Monday.

The bill was one of two jobs initiatives aldermen approved Monday. The other called for creating a committee to establish a jobs “pipeline.” ( Click here to read about that.) The initiatives reflect a determination by members of a new Board of Aldermen to take leadership in addressing joblessness in town.

“This really is a good beginning for the board to provide constituents a chance at employment,” said Hill Alderwoman Jackie James.

“The way it is now is just not working,” James said, “when you look at how many residents are actually being hired.” She and Perez, along with former Alderman Darnell Goldson, have been discussing the issue for some time. Aldermen even got the city to agree to ask for state permission to require city workers to live in New Haven.

City of New Haven, 2010 As of the latest count in 2010, only 37 percent of city government workers lived in New Haven. The city compiled this chart (pictured) illustrating the residency of city union members.

As New Haven faces a 11.7 percent unemployment rate, James said the board needs to give New Haveners “the opportunity to be gainfully employed.” The board should to do “whatever we need to do” to make that happen—“without minimizing the expectations or standards,” she said.

Hartford, Bridgeport, and Waterbury give their residents five to 10 point bonus on civil service exams, according to the resolution.

James said the idea for boosting residency points came from city firefighters.

Darrell Brooks, the political director of the New Haven Firebirds, the city’s fraternal association of black firefighters, said he supports the idea. He called the proposal an economic benefit to the city.

“The tax base becomes stronger when the people who live here have meaningful, sustainable jobs,” he said.

In a recent count, less than a third of city firefighters lived in New Haven.

The Firebirds are already working with the city at a new public safety academy at Hillhouse High School, where high-schoolers are preparing for careers in police and fire departments. Brooks said extra residency points would help graduates of that program land city jobs.

People who live in New Haven and have careers in city government are more likely to own homes and stay in town, which makes the city stronger, Brooks argued.

“I’m a perfect example,” said Brooks, a 17-year veteran of the city firefighting force who was born and raised in New Haven. “I became a firefighter and I became a homeowner.” Now he’s raising kids in the city.

In an interview Monday, Mayor John DeStefano welcomed the aldermen’s proposal. “We ought to have a discussion about it,” he said.

Thomas MacMillan Photo The city plans to examine the issue further and submit a proposal to the Civil Service Commission, according to city Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts.

Smuts said the city has one concern in mind as it studies the topic: How to “make sure we preserve the point of civil service—which is to test for the most qualified applicants.”

The city already has three incentives for applicants on civil service exams, Smuts said: New Haven residents get five points, veterans get five, and disabled veterans get another five, on a 100-point exam. At some point, he argued, increasing those available points may undermine the system.

For example, he said, if a candidate gets 10 residency points and five veteran points, “does that distort the original purpose of civil service?”

The current system has a safeguard against letting the extra points bear too much weight: To pass a civil service test, applicants have to score a 70 of their own merit. Only then are the extra points added. So just being a New Havener can’t enable someone who failed the test to land a job.

As the city examines the new proposal, he said, it plans to explore “whether this is something that makes sense for all jobs that are open, or just some.”

He raised two arguments to why entry-level civil service jobs might be treated differently from, say, the deputy director of the parks department or the city engineer.

For entry-level jobs, such as parks caretakers, cops or firefighters, candidates who score a 70 are considered qualified to get the job, Smuts said. The tests don’t judge job knowledge. Rookies learn the skills in the academy and on the job.

By contrast, a city engineer is expected to have a significant amount of job knowledge before landing the post.

Another big difference between those two types of jobs, Smuts said, is the sheer number of applicants.

When the city tests for an engineer or deputy director of a department, it gets only get a handful of applicants. However, hundreds of applicants pour in for entry-level parks, police and fire jobs.

“When you have many, many, many multiples of applicants more than you’re going to hire, the way the test ends up working out is that the point differences between different applicants tends to matter less,” Smuts explained.

If you lay out the test results along a curve, adding residency points may significantly change where a candidate falls on that curve if there are only a few applicants. With many applicants, however, adding those points “has a less distorting impact on the distribution curve.”

Smuts said the city hasn’t yet taken a stance on how those two types of jobs should be treated.

“I wouldn’t say right now whether more points might be applicable in one circumstance or another,” he said. But the last time the topic was considered, about five years ago, “there was some feeling that it might make sense to give more points for what would be considered entry-level jobs.”

James Segaloff, who served on the Civil Service Commission for 10 years before stepping down last year, echoed that concern.

“I’d be concerned” about the proposal—not opposed, he said. “I don’t know where you draw the line, but I’d be concerned of the unintended consequences of putting too much emphasis on” residency, and losing qualified applicants who live out of town.

Melissa Bailey Photo “I think we need to take that into consideration,” Alderwoman James later responded. “We’re looking to have a broader conversation about this process. This is a recommendation. It’s not final.”

Smuts said any proposal the city makes would be aired in a series of public hearings.

“I don’t want to preclude any possible direction that we’ll take” after talking to aldermen and the public about the topic, Smuts said. He said the board is “supporting the direction that we were thinking of exploring” in increasing the hometown advantage for at least some jobs.

“We’re very interested in exploring this, particularly now that we have the Board of Aldermen calling on us.”

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Comments

posted by: Threefifths on February 7, 2012  2:23pm

Can one still use Veteran’s Preference Points.

posted by: Xurious on February 7, 2012  2:36pm

Why can’t the new alders put together a task force to help applicants from New Haven prepare for the tests?  Why does this have to be a hand-out?

Also, if we give these candidates +5 or +10 points on the test, what guarantee is there that they won’t just move out to the suburbs as soon as they land their new, well-paying job?

If you look at the careers with the most members living outside of New Haven, they are probably the highest paid employees.  What would be really interesting is to see occupation and residency in New Haven cross-checked against income.  I am willing to bet that income is a bigger factor.

posted by: Mixed Up on February 7, 2012  2:58pm

Wait just a minute!,Not only do residents want jobs in other cities/towns but they want an inside track on New Haven jobs when it would probably be called discriminatory if another town/city tried this!

posted by: FacChec on February 7, 2012  3:28pm

It appears Police and Fire are the two main Civil Service required positions.
There is only a smattering of civil service positions among all other positions listed here.

Although this resolution increases point preference and therefore hope for some, it is simply not enough to have an impact on the long ignored jobs problem in New Haven.

Both Police and fire departments test for applicants, however, the test recruitment list itself is limited to the number of applicants sought on any one requisition, usually 25 police and/or fire dept. personnel. Even then, the requisition has a 2yr maximum open requirement.

As I said in an earlier post on the following story: ‘A pipeline in 90 days”

“The majority of jobs at industries listed in the resolution and including the City of New Haven are not civil service appointments, therefore, the benefit of the increased point preference will be limited.

This resolution needs to go further to encompass a preference for all city and city related (contracted) positions

The Mayor should offer additional improvements to the resolution to ensure a workable implementation.

The BOA resolution needs a component which assigns the Department of Economic Development and/or city plan and Humane Resources departments, as the lead developers in this effort,with bench marks and measuring devises assigned.

Remember, the Mayor had announced similar initiatives in his last three state of the city messages, so too has the Black and Hispanic Caucus, But to no avail”.

Unless this jobs proposal is carefully planned and considered, it will ultimately meet the same fate as all the other lip-service proposals the Mayor has offered in his State of the City messages.

Lastly, this proposal offers no impact on how to build a tax base. New Haven remains @ only 30% home ownership, with continuing high property tax assessments, and a very high mill rate, militating against tax base improvement through home ownership.

posted by: nhteaparty on February 7, 2012  3:32pm

Whatever happened to pushing Hartford to allow for residency requirements?  There was talk last March and then, nothing.

The top four categories for pay are the bottom four categories for residency (ctsunlight.org).

I don’t think residents should be given extra points on the tests.  I would like to see a residency requirement for all city employees, but until then I would prefer more competent commuters over less competent residents in our city positions.

posted by: Edward Francis on February 7, 2012  3:53pm

Will this include “public school” teachers? I wonder how many employed New Haven Tax Paying residents work for a municipality located out of town? I wonder how many current city employees (not just police & fire) who live in the city are planning to settle else where? Just wondering!

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