Oct. 31—A Swampscott study committee plans to recommend a complete top-down removal of the town's fire and police departments from Massachusetts Civil Service to the upcoming fall Town Meeting.
Town Meeting members established the study committee in June after much debate and aired concerns over a controversial warrant article that proposed removing Swampscott's police and fire chiefs from civil service.
The five appointed members were charged with placing a recommendation on whether Swampscott should remain in civil service before a future Town Meeting. Members reached their recommendation in late September after they spent a little under three months listening to subject-matter experts as well as learning about, discussing and debating the merit-based hiring system.
Town Meeting is now anticipated to weigh in on a warrant article, one based off the study committee's recommendation, when the local legislative body convenes on Monday, Nov. 16. It's important to also note: Officials acknowledged earlier in the week civil service is a point of discussion as Swampscott fire and police unions and the town continue collective-bargaining negotiations.
Mass Civil Service primer
In 1884, state lawmakers established Massachusetts Civil Service to shield hiring in government from nepotism, quid-pro-quos and patronage. Civil service, today under the commonwealth's Human Resources Division, is involved in aspects of the hiring, promotions and disciplinary appeals for officers and firefighters in over 250 Massachusetts fire and police departments.
Departments in civil service inform the state agency when vacancies exist in their ranks and need filling. Depending on the open position, civil service conducts either entrance exams or the testing of police officers or firefighters seeking promotion.
From the exams and test results emerge a certified list of eligible candidates, ranked and curated by the civil service office based off scores and other factors. Civil service extends preferential treatment to veterans and children of fallen police officers and firefighters in the line of duty.
Communities can also adopt residency requirements and interview candidates, but they must hire from the state-provided eligibility list.
In Swampscott, the town administrator provides hiring and promotion recommendations to the Swampscott Board of Selectmen for confirmation. Exiting civil service would place the hiring, promoting and discipline of Swampscott firefighters and police officers (those in civil service now are grandfathered in) entirely in the town's hands effective July 1, 2021.
"The town will be able to develop its own hiring system," wrote North Reading Police Chief Michael Murphy, who spoke to the study committee about running a non-civil service police department. "Non-civil service communities are able to advertise and recruit candidates."
He said the town could not only draw a larger pool of candidates, but also determine what hiring requirements and preferences it wants to acknowledge, from language proficiency to education level. Meanwhile, the study committee recommendation characterizes civil service as a one-size-fits-all, rigid, time-consuming and cumbersome operation. The state agency does not, committee members argued, account for an individual community's needs.
"A capable manager is able to conduct an ongoing assessment of the evolving public-safety needs of the community: Swampscott's population composition, cultural dynamics, terrain, location and numerous other factors," the study committee's recommendation argues.
Leaving civil service would help remedy a dearth of women and people of color represented in Swampscott police and fire ranks, the study committee's recommendation argues.
"Flexibility to prioritize life experience, skill sets and cultural competency in hiring and promotion enables a manager to build a team responsive to the unique needs of Swampscott," the study committee's recommendation argues.
Swampscott Police Detective Candace Doyle, the study committee's representative for the Swampscott fire and police unions and dissenting voice of the study-committee recommendation, notes civil service can supply municipalities with an list of minority candidates.
"But the department must show past discriminatory practices and admit to discrimination during the hiring process," she wrote in a brief/statement filed with the study committee. "To my knowledge, the department would not be able to show discrimination during the hiring process."
Doyle wrote civil service has room for improvement, but she also turned the table on the town's diversity argument.
"Ask yourself this, if to become more diverse is the town's reason to remove the police and fire departments from civil service," she wrote, "Then why is there no diversity in our other departments/agencies within the town that are not covered under civil service?"
Civil service as umpire
Seniority is rewarded in a civil service department, operating under "a last one hired is the first one fired" policy. It also places a safety net under laid-off police officers and firefighters.
"If patrolmen are laid off due to budget constraints, those employees are placed on a civil-service laid-off list," said Reading Police Sgt. Mark J. O'Brien, an attorney with a 37-year career in law enforcement, when he briefed the study committee about the benefits of civil service. "Every municipality...civil service, patrolmen list is frozen until these employees get hired." This feature of civil service proved beneficial to a Swampscott police officer in 2013.
Civil service clads police and fire ranks in a state-level layer of due process, O'Brien pointed out. Employees can appeal local-level disciplinary decisions to the Massachusetts Civil Service Commission.
O'Brien analogized civil service to an umpire between chiefs/the municipal government and firefighters and police officers.
"Civil service keeps the chief and the municipality playing fair," O'Brien said. "Police officers do occasionally commit acts warranting discipline, up to and including termination. Civil service is not going to protect those employees."
A municipality can appeal commission decisions, too, to Massachusetts Superior Court. The study-committee recommendation reads the disciplinary-appeal process duplicates "safeguards available through union agreements and human-resources policy and practices."
Swampscott fire union took to Facebook early on, expressing members' opposition to exempting chiefs from civil service.
In the post's public comment section, Swampscott resident Thomas H. Driscoll, the elected clerk of Essex County courts since 2001, wrote about his experience working with non-civil-service chiefs.
"As a non-civil service chief, an individual works directly for the select board or mayor in cities: The chiefs are placed right in the political-balancing game," he wrote, adding that they must "keep politicians happy to ensure their employment." "Elected officials are great at handing out liquor licenses, but they are not well suited, nor trained to have such influence over a fire or police chief."
He added, "Civil service does not prevent the elected officials from getting rid of a chief, but it provides a safety net to protect the departments from the dirt of local politics."
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