Provisional employees in municipal government are employees who are working in their specific city title but haven’t been hired permanently from a civil service list. This occurs for many reasons; a test hasn’t been offered, they were hired after a list was exhausted and another test wasn’t given, or maybe they didn’t pass the last exam but the previous exam exhausted all candidates and they were able to stay working.
Some administrations prefer keeping provisionals. Provisionals don’t have the same protections as do permanent employees, thus they are easier to get rid of if money gets tight, or an area needs “restructuring”, or any other reason where you want flexibility in your staffing. Provisionals tend to be more compliant and may overlook things that are not quite adequate so they don’t “rock the boat” and risk losing their job. Some jobs are unique and don’t have many people working in a certain title, and therefore it would be costly to host a test for a handful of incumbents.
A particular legal case was presented regarding municipal workers in Long Beach, NY, where their Civil Service Commission recognized that many provisionals were serving well beyond the maximum 9 MONTHS of service. Many had several years of service; one had 19 years of service as a provisional. The local contract had protections for provisionals, but that was later overruled by the courts .
Because of that, NY Civil Service Law 65 was enacted to require all municipalities to reduce their provisional counts, with NYC DCAS specifically addressed in the law. It states that NYC needs to reduce its provisional count to 5%; a very tall order considering that there were 30,000 provisionals in NYC in 2008.
Since then, DCAS has administered dozens of tests in order to meet the 5% challenge. However, they only had seven years to do it and needed extensions to continue the reduction.
One of the problems with the original provisional reduction plan, was that many, like the 19-year provisional in Long Beach, are serving in their titles and capacities for years. If they don’t pass their exam or are not “reachable” on the list (this document has very good information on ‘reachable’), then their experience, specific knowledge of the work environment and specific job, as well as proficiency and capabilities will be difficult, if not impossible, to regain, even though the replacement candidate passed the general test. Do this thousands of times and you’ve got a real problem in providing services and continuing expensive large-scale projects.
So, recently, a bill signed by Gov. Cuomo Nov. 28 will provide a chance for almost 5,000 provisionals to be appointed to their jobs permanently. This amendment to the 2008 Civil Service Law allows the Department of Citywide Administrative Services to administer a one-time “Qualified Incumbents Exam” for 194 titles, as long as they do not have upcoming open-competitive exams.
So, providing a “Qualified Incumbents Exam”, or QIE, to these provisionals working in their specific task, will reduce the loss of this knowledge base, presuming the incumbent passes the QIE.
The largest city union, DC37, agrees with this plan because it doesn’t penalize the provisional just because the city didn’t hold the exams .
So, for those working as a provisional for two years or more, here’s your one-shot to take the test AND stay where you’re working. It’s good for you – and good for the city.
Questions and Comments welcomed below.
