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Civil Service Bill Supporters Defend Plan At Hearing

Bill Would End Civil Service Exam, Extend Probationary Periods For New Workers

By
JeromeG11 (CC-BY-SA)

Republicans backing a rewrite of Wisconsin’s civil service laws defended the plan Tuesday against charges that it would lead to patronage hiring, telling senators at a public hearing that the goal was to strengthen the state government’s workforce.

The comments were unpersuasive to Democrats and state workers, who testified that the changes would put political pressure on new hires to do what the party in power wants.

The bill would make several changes to Wisconsin’s more-than-century-old civil service system, one of the most controversial being an increase in the probationary period for new hires from six months to two years.

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“You can fake it for six months,” said Republican Sen. Roger Roth. “You find out what an employee is and what they’re capable of when you see them through that two-year process.”

But former state worker Jim Thiel, who sits on the board of the Association of Career Employees, said that a two-year probation period would influence workers in a negative way.

“There is a fear of political repercussions,” he said.

Thiel also told Republicans that they demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the civil service system.

“Civil service protection is actually for the taxpayers to make sure the law is faithfully executed without undue political influence,” Thiel said.

In addition to extending the probationary period, Roth’s proposal would end the civil service exam that’s currently given to all state government applicants and speed up the hiring process. Firing decisions would be based on performance and centralized in the Department of Administration, which Thiel called “the most political of all state agencies.”

Deputy Department of Administration Secretary Cate Zeuske called the changes commonsense reforms that would help the state fill vacancies as more and more workers retire.

“This bill is good for the 30,000-plus state employees, it’s good for our taxpayers, and for the future state employees who will help build those thousands of openings from the retirements looming ahead,” Zeuske said.

Aside from Roth, Zeuske and other political appointees from the Walker administration were the only people to testify in favor of the plan.

Union leaders who spoke, like AFSCME Council 32 Director Rick Badger, said changing civil service protections weren’t the answer to getting more people to join the state workforce.

“The problem is that public employees have been pounded on for so long, that most reasonable people would have to think twice about taking a public job in today’s environment,” Badger said.

Badger urged Republicans to join with Democrats and make bipartisan changes to the civil service laws, though that’s highly unlikely with Republicans in charge of both houses of the Legislature and the governor’s office.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated since its original publication.

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