After much discussion at the City Council meeting last week the Council voted in favor of having city staff study performance as a criteria when it comes to employee layoffs.
The review will determine if the City should include job performance when considering layoffs, or keep the current system in place, which is based solely on seniority. Due to budget shortfalls, the City has eliminated “vacant positions,” which were budgeted with the intention of hiring someone to fill them. Elimination of those positions generated savings, since the savings came from no longer budgeting for the positions.
As a result, the City is forced to do layoffs, based on seniority only. For example, you may have someone on the job for nine years who is under performing yet someone who has been on the job for six years and is a great worker. The person who has been with the City for nine years will “bump” the better performing employee, in the same or different department.
In some situations the person going into the new position does not have the skill set to do the job. This causes disruption to that department and disruption to the client (residents, business,etc). For example someone who has never stepped foot in the water pollution control plant now has a job at the plant, which requires a special skill. Skill sets and domain expertise are lost when people bump to other departments based only on seniority.
There are two points which I think get overlooked in this debate. One: My proposal does not eliminate seniority as a measurement but instead adds performance as a factor. Whether performance will be 10 percent or 20 percent of the total criteria remains to be seen. We may eventually also decide to include education and certification as well. We need some way other than months on the job to make a informed decision.
The other item being overlooked is that performance should be considered when getting a raise or a promotion—not just the current situation of layoffs. Today, salary step increases are rewarded only based on seniority. Adding performance as a criteria should also be considered.
In addition, city staff will study the current evaluation process, which has not always been followed. Some say that evaluations do not matter since the current system is only based on seniority. I would personally be interested in a affordable software evaluation solution so that HR can track all evaluations in real time, and that there is a standard format with the option of allowing some customization of questions for specialty jobs.
I am surprised that this issue was not resolved in prior decades and that there is strong opposition from the leadership of public employee unions. Several city employees in different departments have mentioned to me that it is disappointing to work with someone who does not carry their weight. This is about civil service rules and not about unions, however there will be a lengthy meet-and-confer discussion with the 11 unions. In comparison, the numerous building trade unions do not have seniority and bumping. Union trade members are hired and fired based on work performance.
Seniority is being raised also in Los Angeles, where the ACLU has won in court against the school district, by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a former teachers union organizer. “We cannot continue to automatically guarantee lifetime employment to all teachers,” Mayor Villaraigosa said, “nor can we make decisions about assignments, transfers and layoffs solely on the basis of seniority. Tenure and seniority must be reformed or we will be left with only one option: eliminating it entirely.” If a former union organizer and now Democratic Mayor of California’s biggest city can support performance evaluations, plus 79 percent of San Jose residents, so to should the San Jose City Council.
Congratulations to Arizona-based Microchip Inc, a veteran semiconductor company. They recently located their Silicon Valley office to San Jose from Sunnyvale filling up 100,000 square feet in North San Jose.
Saturday, the Willow Glen Rams defeated the Burlingame Panthers for the division two boys varsity soccer championship. It was first championship soccer win for Willow Glen. Congratulations to Julio Morales who scored two of the three goals.
Ten seats remain unclaimed for tonight’s 6:30pm showing of “The Olmstead Legacy” at City Hall. Please email me to hold a seat(s) at [email protected]
The taxpayers are rightfully upset at government employees who work in a different world than everyone else they are “special” and think taxpayers should pay for excessive pay and retirements they deserve but taxpayers don’t have
Until reasonable changes are made to improve government performance, retirement costs, excessive benefits, and customer service attitudes taxpayers will continue to believe government employment needs significant reforms
Government has for too long been inefficient, costly and has not used performance measurements to evaluate employees and think t
Seniority ( experience ), job performance, cost efficiency, education, certifications and customer service should all be considered for both promotions and layoffs
RE: Government Employee Reforms needed
Seems more like more of coordinated attack from the Right than the Unions are bringing down the country. The last time I remembered we had the biggest theft in world history that came from us. The country was looted by Wall Street investers and now they want ALL tax payers to pay for it? San Jose had those same shit investments that no one is talking about. Shouldn’t this conversation be about bad judgement by are city officials? Unions workers are just a scapegoats so this crisis won’t go to waste. I do agree Governments are somewhat inefficient and change is good, but private sector jobs have been falling since Reagan rode in on his white horse. Slashing and cutting the taxes on the rich has not helped this country’s virture at all. Blaming Unions is just a distraction from the real problem San Jose faces and the rest of country. Corruption at the top making up the rules up as they go along.
Still waiting for the Right and Left to have that adult conversation they say they want to have.
Public Employee
You are entitled to your opinion but most District 6 voters and residents strongly support Pierluigi’s efforts to get very high city employee costs under control and improve city government services
If you are a District 6 voter you will have a opportunity to evaluate our Council member’s performance in the next election
Using seniority as the only measure of employee promotion or layoff rewards poor performance and problem employees while discouraging good employees and goes against the American ideal of rewarding the best employee not lesser or worst just because they have been their longer
PO – Good job, keep it up, reduce costs and improve city government
Public Employee – if you propose that employee’s ” under performing your job ” ” should be fired. ” do you object to using performance along with seniority to determine layoffs and promotions ?
For your information only District 6 voters can ” fire ” PO – not you, city unions or South Bay Labor
He has very high approval ratings with District 6 voters and residents who like what he is doing for us
D6 Neighbor-
I see that I ruffled a few feathers. Please don’t take my performance of Pier literal. I was simply pointing out that relying on a single persons opinion for basis of job retention could potentially be costly to the city since the issue has not been court tested. To attempt an implement a process at a time when we have no money and could potentially expose us to liability is a concern.
Having a debate about the idea sometimes involves playing devils advocate.
My personal opinion of Pier aside, I am glad his constituents applaud him. You are correct, only the voters of D6 can fire him. Just remember, D6 is only 1/10th of this city, and your views and that of your council member are not always reflected across the remaining 9/10ths of the city.
Gadzooks, only an entrenched bureaucrat could make this statement regarding vacant positions: “Elimination of those positions generated savings, since the savings came from no longer budgeting for the positions.
As for seniority, it is at the very heart of the “union beast.” Almost on par with seniority is free donuts and coffee.
Greg,
In city budget speak it is viewed as savings. Probably a better way to put it is, elimination of vacant positions have been the historic way to eliminate a deficit in local government. Over the years I have heard several residents wonder how over a hundred positions get eliminated yet no layoffs.
To give another example if a city employee leaves mid fiscal year for any reason then I believe the other half of the budgeted compensation goes unspent and therefore savings. However the savings could be exhausted in some situations depending on vacation and sick leave payouts.
As usual, you rock Pierluigi! (Disclosure: I am NOT a D6 resident)
It is high time for a robust Performance Management system and process be put in place.
I fully support the idea of performance evaluations for ALL City employees. This means throughout ALL ranks: directors, deputy directors, managers, line staff, etc. (The Mayor/City Council get their evaluations all year in the form of complaints/compliments and at the end of their term by being voted back into office or not.) An evaluation’s should be the majority of criteria when determining raises and lay offs. It should be 80 – 90% with the other 10 – 20% based on achievements outside the 8-hour day, like continuing education or special projects.
Further, I want to see “360 evaluations”—that is, peers, co-workers, subordinates and supervisors weigh in on someone’s performance. There is better balance this way and it’s much easier to spot favoritism or passive/aggressive behavior. (Why should someone get a good evaluation because they’re good at “kissing a_ _?! Peers/colleagues may think twice before “letting someone have it” knowing that they too will be evaluated by their peers.)
Evaluations should NOT be a “surprise” to any employee—employees must be treated fairly: The employee must have input on goals they’d like to achieve and stretch goals based on departmental needs. Require quarterly check-ins w/managers to be held to gauge progress. Training and development should be focused toward the development of those goals. Quarterly check-ins provide balance in the event someone has an off month or two (ex: if someone is going through a personal crises or medical issue). The final annual evaluation, focusing on the total progress of the goals, is given at the end of the year.
Raises and layoffs both should be based on performance and not how long someone can hang out in a job. I have heard from some employees that seniority offers “protection” and “assurance,” especially if the employee is considered to be someone who does not “go along to get along.” In this case I question the manager of the employee… what kind of business unit are they running when people are either afraid to speak up or labeled a troublemaker when they do? I want City employees to be rewarded for asking “what if?” type questions in an attempt to make improvements and challenge the status quo. Further, employees who get certification or education to further enhance their skills should receive some type of acknowledgement (my vote would be a raise in pay level or increased responsibility at a higher wage level).
The City must implement a set of standard evaluative tools and templates to ensure fairness for everyone, again we’re talking about a robust Performance Management system. Unions can help in this process and also be there for any employee grievance issues.
It’s a lot, but the system as it is now is not fair to many bright and energetic employees who serve the City residents well and are role models for future employees.
My .02
Tina
But for our upper people…it would be too much work. Too much tracking. They like carrying coffee cups and collecting big paychecks.
Good idea Tina, but having worked for the City for over a decade, your ideas would never work. You see, in this City, all managers above the lowest supervisor level (usually those with a Senior before their job title, this is the lowest supervisor level) just go to meetings. They do no real work, lots of meetings, I mean 4 hours a day spent in meetings. The other 4 hours is spent who knows where. I know for a fact my managers usually “disappear” for long periods and never show up in their offices. You cannot give them something to read, they all have 2 minute attention spans. No interest in detail. Enjoy swaggering about sucking up to the Director. If you want to get a higher level manager to like you, talk about “Visioning the Future”, they love it! Leave it to the lowest level managers, they are the hard workers. Seems the higher level managers put all the work on the bottom level. Leaving nothing for them to do. I work in a department where there are 5 levels of management between me and the Director. Full Disclosure: I am Lowest Level Supervisor.
The upper levels of management get to write their own evaluations. Putting a system in place, such as you suggest, would take years, though it seems very fair.
“…what kind of business unit are they running when people are either afraid to speak up or labeled a troublemaker when they do?”
Vindictiveness and favoritism are rampant. I could give you some instances that would make your eyes pop, but I won’t air that on this public blog. It is what it is and we just do the best we can to get through it.
Age discrimination and favoritism. You couldn’t count on the evaluation being a true evaluation.
Pier,
Just curious; Under Pier’s new rating system, would a citizen complaint and trip to internal affairs be counted against an officer?
Franco,
I think this would be a matter for the police chief to decide since your vocation is specialized however I believe an unjustified complaint should not count against.
Look forward to your feedback on the article I wrote last week:
http://www.sanjoseinside.com/news/entries/02_28_11_we_pay_twice_for_affordable_housing/
You took time out to answer Frank regarding his post a day after I posted a three part response to your proposal. I am hoping that you are taking time to formulate a response to all of the points I raised. I certainly hope that you are not going to ignore the issues posted here or is it your view that San Jose Inside is just a billboard for you to provide one way information? I challenge you to post a comprehensive point by point response to your initial article.
Pier,
There are about 5 different findings ranging from exoneratied to substantiated. At which point would something be justified or unjustified and count against an officers evaluation?
It is unfortunate that the previous thread of our interaction was deleted. I asked you how your new rating system would count against me and the injuries I have suffered as a patrol officer and you replied 10-20% unfavorable but you have a job waiting for me as a code enforcement officer (Say, that means Pete would be perfect for the job instead of being an unfunded liability). Did you have anything to do with the deletion of this thread? Only asking because you delete negative comments off your public facebook site.
Any comment on the $63 million dollar lawsuit filed against the city redevelopment agency by the county yesterday for failing to pay for services? You all still trying to get around things by hiding the assests so Mayor Reed can build a baseball stadium?
Any comment on how Pete Constant threw the city council under the bus aside from you in regards to not attending a community meeting? (see Constants blog).
Look forward to your feedback.
Dude you have no clue do you….
You are correct about the step increases. There should be far more of them. My suggestion would be .5% every 6 months. Try to make them last for a long time. When people have a goal it keeps them focused. Unions won’t like it but give them slightly better health deductible in return. Be fair with them.
Also you need to get a health plan the rewards people that work toward better health and penalizes people remaining for being overweight or smokers.
You might also ask why laid off city planners and other city personal are not are not given first crack at new city job postings that require no special skills. Instead management hires someone’s kid from the outside.
Everyone knows how city hall works. Most of the new hires are related to someone and those laid off have no connections.
Your performance evaluation idea will end up getting gamed by the insiders within a year of implementation.
Part 1
Councilperson Luigi, can you be that unaware of how most of your own city departments function? Let me illuminate how the PD works when it comes to the various positions.
In order to receive a “desk job” assignment in the Bureau of Investigations an officer has to apply to the unit. That unit has a testing process the usually includes an oral board, perhaps a written test and/or a practical exam, and positive recommendations from their current supervisor. Seniority is factored into the equation but on a smaller scale. This means that the playing field is reasonably level for all applicants. It is not uncommon for younger officers who have a strong desire to work a specific unit to study for months, conduct intensive research, and thoroughly prepare for the exam. As a result, they just might come out at the top or very high on the list. The older officer, perhaps one like Frank with some physical limitations but a wealth of experience, might be farther down that list.
This process is based upon merit. It follows exactly the philosophy that you are espousing for layoffs in that those that are recognized to have performed better receive the prize. How do you intend then to deny that younger officer who wants to work say the Gang Investigations Unit or the Sexual Assaults Unit who has arrived at the top of the test list through merit in favor of the older officer who did not perform as well but who needs a less physical work environment?
Is it then your intent to only consider merit or performance for layoffs but not for any other portion of personnel management within the city? Or perhaps you will just adopt a kind of “Logan’s Run” (old sci-fi movie) philosophy where at a certain age city employees are given pink slips. Will this be a defined age or will you give all city employees a physical agility test and when they don’t pass, they are terminated.
Maybe you will have a certain physical test for desk jobs and then a separate physical test for patrol. But wait, detectives who work in many of the investigative units routinely go into the field and contact criminals. It is not uncommon for detectives to have physical confrontations or be required to perform a physical arrest or search. Maybe the detectives should be restricted from going into the field so they don’t get hurt. If they need somebody interviewed or arrested they can call a patrol unit away from serving their neighborhoods instead. Of course there is also that pesky Duty Manual section that says that any person assigned outside of the patrol function can be called upon at any time to put their uniform on and respond to calls in the event of an emergency or short staffing. So, detectives are actually held to the same physical standards as patrol officers. In the event of a major emergency, natural disaster, significant civil disobedience or other event that would require all hands on deck, I guess we can just ask surrounding agencies to come and bail us out. The detective bureau can shuffle paper and watch.
Is it your solution then to create two classes of police officers? Should we say have one class that meets one physical criteria and then another class that has a much lower bar set for them? The lower class could work desk jobs and the higher class could work patrol. I am thinking here that there might be just a slight issue of age discrimination. Young officers would be barred from applying to the detective bureau until they reached either a certain age, or could definitively prove that they were physically unable to do patrol work any more. Call me cynical but I think there would be a line a mile long at several doctor’s offices by younger officers seeking that physicians note stating they are now unable to work the streets. I suspect these notes would be as ubiquitous as the medical marijuana card.
What happens then when you have a glut of officers claiming to be physically unable to perform the patrol function any more, assuming you have changed the Duty Manual requiring detectives to be capable of patrol duties, so that they can get that “desk job” in the detective bureau. Will you then lay those officers off and hire new youngsters in their prime? I guess the tens of thousands of dollars invested in recruiting and training an officer are irrelevant.
Perhaps we should invest far less money in the hiring and training process so that officers are basically disposable. Police officers can be like a container of Wet Ones. You pop one up, use it, and when it wears out, throw it away and pop up another one. Don’t bother sending new officers to a police academy or any follow up training that isn’t free. In a few short years they might have to be fired due to the constant wear and tear, advances in age, and injuries sustained during their patrol duties. Officers lucky enough to have found a home in the detective bureau will hold on to that job for the rest of their careers. Openings will be few and far between, especially given the decimation of the Bureau of Investigations that is presently taking place. Any patrol officer that can’t compete with a 21 yr. old new hire is shown the door.
I am also thinking that recruiting is going to get a little tougher. Potential candidates will compare the SJPD with other agencies and find a huge discrepancy in career opportunities. A potential officer can choose San Jose and be assured a decade or two working nothing but patrol with no possibility of a detective or specialized position. Or, they can go to an agency where they might get to rotate in and out of various positions during their career. This also brings up of course the complete dismantling of a department philosophy that has proven wildly successful over the years.
SJPD has used a mandatory rotation system that was introduced by Joe McNamara back in the day. Officers can only leave the patrol function for a maximum of 3 years before being required to return to patrol. An officer has to then serve a full year before they can apply for another position. Sergeants can only leave patrol for 6 years before they have to rotate back. This policy has provided for a very experienced patrol division and has given many more officers the opportunity to gain a broad variety of skill sets. It is not uncommon for a citizen of San Jose to have a patrol officer come to their door in response for a call for service who is extremely well trained. That officer might well have served in the Crime Scene Unit, Special Operations, the Financial Crimes Unit, as a training officer, or any number of specialized assignments in their career.
That citizen is going to benefit from the breadth of experience within that officer for whatever crisis that forced them to call for police services. Not so under your new plan of putting all the old officers in the detective bureau and keeping the youngsters in patrol. San Jose will go back to the Hollywood movie cliche of assuming that any officer wearing that uniform is doing so because they are too stupid, lazy, or unmotivated to achieve otherwise.
We will also begin to mirror our other large city to the north and how they do police business. At SFPD officers can leave the patrol function and never return. It is not uncommon for an officer who does not want to promote to sergeant to land in a plumb assignment and stay there for 20 years or more. SFPD is a very “east coast” mentality agency and if that is what you want, that is what you will get. Oh, but they do also have 2,000 officers for 800,00 or so citizens in 46 square miles with 11 sub-stations. Since San Jose has nearly 200 square miles, over a million citizens, no sub-stations (at least occupied), with only 1,200 officers you may have to make some changes to adopt the SFPD model.
Let’s also look at this evaluation system you propose. Having written employee evaluations for nearly 14 years and having received them for nearly three decades I have some experience with them. I treat employee evaluations as very important. Traditionally not because I knew my superiors would be scrutinizing them or even paying a modicum of attention to them, but for the employee. It is a valuable tool to let an employee know what they are doing right and to encourage them to improve where needed. However, this viewpoint was clearly not always shared by my fellow superiors. In reviewing past evaluations in preparation for a current review, I found many previous managers who clearly did not invest much time and even less thought when they wrote them. This was generally due to the knowledge that nobody took them seriously.
An evaluation is only as good as the person who wrote it. Would you then recommend then that prior to any employee facing a layoff whose evaluations might be less than stellar be able to demand a review of the people who wrote those evaluations? That would only seem fair to me to be able to call into question the ability of the person doing the evaluating if a person’s livelyhood was on the line. Who then gets to decide if the person writing the evaluation was negligent in their efforts? What happens when a supervisor with a very poor reputation gives a dishonest evaluation to somebody they dislike? Or worse yet, a supervisor writes a great evaluation to a lousy employee just because they are friends. Lord knows that would never happen.
I keep reading that “union leaders” don’t like the merit system of layoffs and support seniority as the arbiter of promotion, retention, or termination. Could it be that union leaders are also city employees that have witnessed the arbitrary and even capricious nature of the evaluation process over the years? Might union leaders, and members for that matter, understand that in many circumstances their evaluation wasn’t worth the paper it was written on? And suddenly somebody wants to base their financial lives on those pieces of paper that may have been written with no thought to the consequences.
I am also curious as to how this will pan out when it comes to the city’s unwritten support of affirmative action. In the SJPD, promotions have been based for years on insuring that the rainbow coalition was present on each and every promotional dais. If the hiring and promotional processes have consistently used affirmative action tactics under the guise of “equality assurance”, how will you be able to keep minority hires from joining the ranks of the unemployed? This alone will no doubt keep some at HR up all night with fits.
Pierluigi it appears to me that you have not bothered to do any serious research into the way your own city functions. Have you gone to the police, fire, and other departments and sat down with various members of each rank and asked them about the performance evaluations process? How long have you been a city employee? Could there be a valid reason that a city employee with say 20-30 years of city experience finds your suggestions ludicrous? Or are you just pandering to the loudest whiners or most proliferate bloggers in order to appear dedicated to your constituents? Please show us the depth of research you have conducted across the country as to why a process that is completely objective and blind to bias like seniority should be abandoned in favor of a process that has historically proven to be rife with corruption, favoritism, inaccuracies, inequality, and life altering mistakes.
I am also curious as to where you were over the years during various promotions where merit was clearly thrown out the window in favor of a star chamber secret meeting that ignored the results of an unbiased testing process. At the PD the Chief of Police routinely ignored the results of the civil service merit based city tests in favor of hand picking his favorites based upon some criteria known only to himself or the City Manager. How come you did not leap to the defense of those who placed at the top of a very difficult testing process who were denied promotion especially when the chief chose candidates who barely passed the test and who came in last place? Where was the outrage, the indignation, the call for a change in the selection system then?
Please back up your suggestions with qualified research and cold hard facts Councilperson Luigi. So far your suggestions smack of a “spray and pray” approach where ideas are floated the moment they are thought without serious research and justification.
Preach it, brother.
Very well stated, good job making great points that are obvious to most involved and would have been obvious to the council had they spent 10 minutes doing any thinking or research. I fault the city counsel for not speaking out against these crazy ideas floated by Mr Oliverio that seem to be focused driving a wedge between dedicated employees and city management. Shame on you Mr. Oliveria and shame on you city council. “All it takes for evil to succeed if for good men to do nothing”
Hey Pier remember the 30+ string of burglaries that plagued your district last Summer? You remember when you paid a visit to speak with the team of deadwood officers that made a HUGE dent in the crime in your beloved Willow Glen district. How quickly we forget and kick people to the curb when they dont suit your current needs.
Hello Rick or Ken or other police who met with me that morning. Residents appreciate SJPD track record on solving crimes both violent and property. Not sure why you would refer to your team as deadwood when their performance was great. As you remember we had a candid discussion on police and budget matters. In fact we discussed calls for service for affordable housing. I would be interested in your feedback in the article I wrote last week on this topic:
http://www.sanjoseinside.com/news/entries/02_28_11_we_pay_twice_for_affordable_housing/
Part3 is right on target. This was a Rob Davis special. So Piero where were you, oh great defender of what is right? All you guys up in the glass tower are blinded by yourselves. It wont take too much longer for the majority of citizens to figure you guys out. Look at Liccardo. This guy is already flopping like a fish out of water trying to decide who he is for or against. Oh yeah elections are coming up and he may be looking for union backing.. You are all pathetic!!!
Thank you Pierluigi for posting your views and responding to comments. I wish the other council members had the guts to state their positions clearly and listen to citizen feedback (Ash? Madison? Are you listening?) I am a D6 resident and will actively campaign for your re-election, keep up the good work.
To those complaining about blending in a performance based metric to determine raises, promotions, lay-offs, etc I ask that you begin thinking about the San Jose taxpayers as customers to whom you should be delivering a continuously improving, efficient, effective, innovative product. Can’t we agree that we want San Jose to provide the best product (police, fire, code enforcement, permitting, inspections, etc) to the customers (aka taxpayers)??? The best… better than anyone else…kind of a competitive thing. Anyone want to argue this? If so, then I don’t want you working in San Jose.
Pierluigi, you are not off the hook. I agree w/previous posts that San Jose is too heavy in supr/mgt ranks. Top companies require managers to supervise 10-12 employees, not 1-2. Remaining mgrs/directors should take bigger pay cuts than line workers, they should lead from the front for heaven’s sake. Stop subsidizing the Hayes Mansion, the golf courses, and everyone’s pet project/museum. I would also like to hear why Pete Constant is on disability rather than at some light duty desk job. I think Police/Firefighters should work past 50, even if it means reassignment, this includes disability and this includes Pete Constant. Can you get Pete to answer this please? Tell him an upset customer wants to know.
The customers are paying too much for a crappy product and we are PISSED OFF!!! FIX IT!!!
Remember, you work for US, we don’t work for you.
A frustrated customer.
“To those complaining about blending in a performance based metric to determine raises, promotions, lay-offs, etc I ask that you begin thinking about the San Jose taxpayers as customers to whom you should be delivering a continuously improving, efficient, effective, innovative product.”
Herein lies the problem. Raises and promotions are already supposed to be based upon performance evaluations. Guess what? They are currently routinely ignored in favor of other criteria. At the SJPD a supervisor can write a younger officer an excellent evaluation and recommend that they receive a scheduled raise early based upon performance. This happens once in a while but is also routinely denied as managers are afraid that if they give one person an early raise they will have to give more and more line personnel early raises. As a result, merit raises are completely arbitrary depending on who the recommendation is given to or if the chain likes the person or not or who is watching.
As for promotions, the SJPD has ignored evaluations for decades. Affirmative action goals, friendships, a certain physical look, participation in extra-curricular activities that the Chief likes, and other entirely subjective standards have completely replaced the performance evaluation and the civil service testing process as the measures for who is promoted. The “Rule of 10” has allowed the chief to hop, skip, and jump all over a promotional list that was based on unbiased level playing field testing in order to get who he really wants. When anyone at the rank of Lieutenant and above comes to your community meeting, rest assured that their test scores and evaluations may not be the reason they wear gold on their uniform. Chief Davis even went as far as to say that he turns all promotional lists on their side ignoring the final scores. That means that the person who just barely passed the minimum performance of 70% is viewed the same as the person who may have studied and prepared for a year or more and who scored say a 99% or better on the exam process.
How then do you intend to institute a fair, honest, and unbiased layoff process if the PD, and probably other city entities as well, has never utilized one before? Do you really think that when the City Manager tells the Chief of Police to hand pick the 100 or more officers to be laid off based upon a subjective criteria that you the citizen will end up with the “cream of the crop”? Are you that naive to think that using a subjective process won’t fall prey to human nature? I guarantee you that those let go will not be pink slipped based upon performance. You will not be left with the best and brightest. You will be left with those that the upper management likes, period. The chief can adopt the same methodology they have used for years in promoting and just cut out those they don’t like and ignore performance claiming the same rationale they used for promoting in that the testing process doesn’t capture “intangibles”. This is a code word for the good ol’ boy network.
There is a reason that seniority has been used for decades at the federal, state, and local levels. It is blind and unbiased. Seniority does not allow for corrupt influences or cronyism. Seniority assumes that as an employee increases their tenure they increase their knowledge and experience. Is this occasionally wrong? You bet it is. There are some senior city employees that become complacent and lazy feeling like they are untouchable. Is this the norm? Absolutely not. I would submit however that using a flawed performance evaluation system or allowing city managers to pick and choose who gets laid off will be for more detrimental to retaining the best workers. Human nature will dictate that good hard working employees will be let go and friends with perhaps less talent will be retained. Either method is going to see problem employees kept on but at least one of the methods is unbiased, objective, and won’t generate dozens of expensive lawsuits.
So you acknowledge the product is broken but you are trying to convince me that this broken product (seniority based) is better than the other broken product (just consider performance).
I don’t want a broken product and I don’t appreciate you trying to convince me to accept a broken product.
I think we agree (I think….) that there are underperforming (you said “complacent” and “lazy”) employees and that they should be let go before good performers. Can we agree on that? Can we also agree that we need a good process to identify these people and instill a culture of performance and delivering a good product? I’m not saying the process would be easy, or perfect, but better than what we have now.
I believe the hardworking employees(the vast majority of S.J. employees) and their unions know who these slackers are and I challenge them (you?) to identify a way to fairly put them on 90 day improvement plans and at the top of the lay-off lists.
Do this, and you’ll start to renew my faith in collective bargaining.
A frustrated customer.
PS In my experience, lay-offs (while never fun) that eliminate slackers actually make the organization healthier and the hardworking employees respond w/a “it’s about time they got rid of him/her, I was tired of covering for him/her”.
Strike one.
How about Pete Constant wanting to eliminate an administrative position that he does not need….do you support this?
Still frustrated customer.
I agree the product is broken but I disagree on your solution. I agree that the performance evaluation process has serious flaws. In an ideal civil service world with completely unbiased and objective performance evaluation writers raises, promotions, and even layoffs would be done on the basis of those evaluations. However, I challenge you to show me a flawless evaluation system anywhere in the world. Human beings find it very difficult to be completely without prejudice, not to hold grudges, and not to reward people they personally like despite their job performance.
What I said about under performing workers is that both methods of choosing who leaves and who stays will leave some poor employees behind and discharge some talented workers anyway. Using a flawed performance evaluation process will provide management a tool for picking and choosing who they like and ridding the department of those that might disagree with them. Kind of like Stalinist Russia and we see how successful they were. Poor but popular performers will remain and good workers that might disagree with management, are unpopular, or who might just be the types who fly under the radar will be let go. With seniority based layoffs some poor performers will also remain, some will be laid off, and some good workers will be let go as well.
The seniority system however is blind to management’s wishes, and also co-workers I might add. The decision on who stays and who goes is done mathematically. You say that union workers know who is a slacker and who is not. I would ask what qualifies any employee to decide what other employee is a good worker, who should stay, or who should go. Again, even line personnel who work side by side are plagued by the same human foibles as management when it comes to choosing who to kick of the island. I have seen time and time again both in the public and private sector where a good worker, but who might be somewhat of a loner, is sent packing because they are not in the popular clique. Is that what we want, voting between workers as to who stays and who leaves? I haven’t seen that tactic in the private sector either where co-workers get to tell management who they want gone.
You might think that I am a bit cynical about my fellow bosses and co-workers in the public sector and you would be right but it is based on actual experience. However, I also have extensive history in the private sector and have also been witness to many layoffs at private companies. A private company has the ability to use management judgment on who to keep and who to let go because they are not civil servants. Private companies function under a different set of rules.
You should know that the basic concept of civil service does hinge heavily on a merit system for hiring, promotion, and termination. However, that system is supposed to use quantifiable testing and objective evaluation as the principle criteria and it does weigh seniority heavily. Given that the current performance evaluation system in San Jose is far from objective, rife with back scratching, and highly inaccurate how do we take away a person’s livelyhood based upon that system?
I have no solution for the present. We cannot use an unfair system to lay people off. For the future, I can only say that in order to remove subjectivity from our system we have to remove things like the “rule of 10” and reward people who have performed well on tests along with holding supervisors and managers accountable for what they write on an evaluation. How can we lay people off based upon performance evaluations when we don’t promote them or give them raises based on those very same documents?
Until this is done, it is just plain immoral to lay off a person using the existing system. And as such, the only alternative is to use the seniority method to remove any potential misuse of the supposed performance based layoffs. I equate this situation to when Benjamin Franklin paraphrased Sir John Fortescue and William Blackstone when he said “It is better 100 guilty persons should escape than that one innocent person should suffer.” Our current civil service system recognizes that seniority is the one true way to remove human error and the chance of management abusing the system and persecuting that one innocent person.
By the way, collective bargaining revolves around mutually agreed upon wages and working conditions. Why you would have an issue with two groups coming to an agreement between themselves is beyond me. The principle term here is bargaining. Collective bargaining is far more efficient than each employee trying to negotiate their own conditions. Does it give labor more clout? Of course it does but the intent is to level the playing field, not give them undue advantage.
When a contract is signed between the city and the union, nobody is holding a gun to the head of the city negotiators. The amount of times unions have actually gone on strike are relatively few. Public safety is barred from striking and hence the reason for binding arbitration. And, binding arbitration has very rarely been resorted to by either public safety or the city. I think too many people are harking back to the teamster days back east and trying to equate those times with modern labor/management situations in San Jose. They are quite dissimilar.
We don’t know the actual REAL reason why he wanted to eliminate the position. We have find out what happens during the trial. There is always two sides to a story and we have to hear both sides to find the truth. That will be decided in the courts. So let’s wait to see what happens.
I see you are at it again Eric. How many posts did you delete?? There were 35, now only 26? You sir, are taking censorship to a new level.
Now we know who is fair and impartial. Who’s taking sides? Where’s my post?
Performance as a factor in layoffs, okay, it sounds reasonable. But of course you know that not all performance evaluations to date have been a true reflection of someone’s ability and public service but rather reflect on the relationship between an employee and supervisor (how well liked they are, etc.)
If you really want to be Machiavellian, how about considering cost to retain. Seems like senior employees with first tier pensions might make a better layoff if they are just killing time until maxing retirement. Then replace them down the road with people lower on the pay scale with second-tier pensions.
This is actually how the worst of private industry operates, laying off senior engineers and replacing them with young recent graduates. Of course there is a social cost.
“I am surprised that this issue was not resolved in prior decades and that there is strong opposition from the leadership of public employee unions.”
Of course you’re surprised, Councilman, because you know nothing of what it is to work for the city, but in the spirit of civility I won’t speculate on your failure to acknowledge it. That said, your idea regarding a “software solution” is telling, the equivalent of suggesting an eye-catching menu to improve a restaurant’s lousy food.
San Jose city workers exist in a bizarro world where every rule has an exception, accountability is arbitrary, reality is subject to suspension, talent and ability can be conferred by edict, and failing to pretend everything is on the up and up constitutes career suicide. For four decades the commitment of the elected and appointed officials of this city has been to employee color and gender, not competence or qualification, and this commitment has permeated and corrupted every evaluative process, be it at hire, promotion, skill certification, performance evaluation, or bestowal of awards. Every conceivable standard has been ignored, every process impacted, every rule violated in service to the city’s misguided “commitment to diversity.”
An organization cannot serve two masters, thus with the embrace of diversity came the demise of merit. Hiring unqualified people is only the first stage of the rot, as most of these employees (representing, as they do, politicized groups) will “have to” graduate their training, “have to” receive positive evaluations, “have to” be awarded coveted assignments, “have to” be promoted. And all along the way their coworkers—good and bad, will take notice, endure the impact, figure out how to cope. Sadly, frustration will drive some of the best employees to settle for a job instead of a career, while the worst employees will find security in the breakdown of expectations and accountability.
In the police department, so deep is the damage that it is not infrequent that alarmingly low numbers of applicants turnout for promotional testing. Imagine that, in a job in which promotion translates into more money, less contact with resident bottom-feeders, and all but eliminates the danger to life and limb. A career filled with risk and devoid of advancement: that’s the price many have paid to opt out of the insulting ruse and maintain their personal integrity.
To think that an evaluation process might retain a shred of legitimacy in such an environment is the mark of the uniformed; to think that race and gender won’t play into the decision-making come layoff time is the mark of the ignorant. As I’ve stated previously, if the performance of any senior employee can qualify them for selected layoff then it should qualify them for selective termination. But to try to justify any punitive actions based on the credibility of the personnel evaluation system now in place will do nothing but lead to contentious court cases and leave our city attorneys and you, Councilman, looking clueless and quite lame.
BS,
As usual, right on the mark.
As usual, BSM hits a tape measure HOMERUN. Well put BSM. That was organic, unfiltered and pure truth.
BS, you have it right. The terminations will NOT be actually based on performance. They will be based on something else bizarro. Best to stay with seniority.
Frank,
If, in fact, your post and the resulting comments were intentionally deleted, then I think it’s safe to say that it was done solely because of the content of Mr. Oliverio’s response. It was, to be kind, one of his dumbest, as it revealed his ignorance of job discrimination laws, Civil Service rules, as well as the police work environment. The narcissistic councilman, so caught up in the excitement of his layoff lottery idea, needs to understand that:
Using age as a determining factor is illegal and will get this city sued (damage to be born by the taxpayer)
Using job-related disabilities is illegal and will get this city sued (damage to be born by the taxpayer)
Using selection criteria invented on-the-fly (e.g. advanced degree) to maintain a position already attained constitutes an unfair labor practice. Many of the organization’s most valuable employees are those with neither the time nor the inclination to punch up their résumés: they’d rather spend their on-duty time catching crooks and their off-duty time taking care of their families. There is no better education in how to protect a city than to be out there doing it, and many of those who’ve opted for the classroom over the street did so because they were smart enough to know their limitations (an impressive training file in police work more often than not equates to an embarrassingly thin record of arrests and meaningful commendations).
Lastly, police officers are not city employees assigned to the police department: they are classified employees with qualifications mandated at the state level. They cannot be compelled to change hats—bum knees or not, and the very idea that an aging police officer might deserve to be forcibly reassigned outside of his/her PROFESSION is grossly insulting.
BS,
I agree that the thread was removed because Pier crossed a legal line. I don’t agree with it being taken down though by whoever did it. It would appear that Pier, or some other city representative, told someone at SJI to take it down. It should have been left here as a memorial to Pier’s arrogant ignorance, his self importance to feel he can make unilateral and arbitrary labor decisions, and his delusion of what happens to a police officers mind and body after 30 years on the job, and they are something to be cast aside when they are used up.
As mentioned many times over the years I have zero control of this website. I understand that you do not like adding performance as a criteria for layoffs or raises, even it is only 10%. We disagree.
If ti looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and talks like a duck…well then Councilman..you know the rest.
Just curious, would you have plead guilty if you had actually been charged with theft??
Part of politics is disagreement. Your job is to find common ground, not take part in polarizing activity.
Until you extend an olive branch and start coming to the middle, I can guarantee you, that the POA membership will force you to cut those 350 and watch you, the Mayor, and that sad excuse of a former officer Constant commit political suicide.
My opinion is that you need to pull your bulldog Alex Gurza aside and give him some redirection to a more moderate tone.
Your demands thus far have made the POA membership disinterested and offended. You can not have your cake and eat it too. I and others are willing to be reasonable, but we will not get bent over.
Can you explain how this would work? I’m not understanding the 10% thing. Can you break it down for us?
Pier,
Don’t twist around my words. What I think is disgusting is your proposal PUNISHES officers who have broken bodies and minds after spending a career devoted to this city. That you would deduct 10% from a senior officer who physically can’t do the job of a younger officer is immoral and very likely illegal.
I heard on the news, yesterday, where a court has reversed what a City did to base layoffs on performance over seniority. The judge stated that it wasn’t fair to the employee. I was getting ready for work and just heard parts of it, so I didn’t catch the city. Anyway, wherever it was, it has set a precedent.
Here’s my take on your proposal and why it lacks merit. While I can point to various examples of excellent leaders in the PD, their ranks are diminishing and managers are taking their places. There’s a difference, and in police work, it’s of vital importance. One of these very important differences is that leaders tend to concern themselves with DOING right, while the managers seem more concerned with looking right. This is a difference which reflects in performance appraisals as well.
Next issue. The boilerplate evaluations which seem to be used throughout the city departments has very little relevance to police work. The logical convolutions and creativity that are required to make an evaluation relevant are ridiculous. Furthermore, most of us pretty much resent being evaluated on the same terms as though we were retail employees. It’s absurd. It’s insulting. It has very little bearing on what we actually do, except in the narrative.
Next issue. Unless you are either a star performer gunning for a specialized unit (or promotion) or a really poor employee, these annual appraisals have very little relevance.
Last issue: In order to protect the city from law suits and in order to actually be worthwhile in terms of evaluating employee performance in a meaningful way, the whole system would need a comprehensive overhaul, to include the 360 evals that ‘Tina Morrill’ suggested. Frankly, the process would be far too time-consuming and too costly.
PLO, you’ve got much bigger issues at hand.
Oh, and BTW, PLO, rather than giving a simplistic statement such as “I understand that you do not like adding performance as a criteria for layoffs or raises, even it is only 10%. We disagree.” why don’t you put some effort into actually addressing the issues that BSM and Frank and the guy who wrote that 3 part post bring up?
These are real concerns and valid issues that have been raised. But, you blithely act as though it’s just intransigence that keeps us from agreeing with you. When you are critiqued, your ideas challenged or criticized, you fall silent. Frankly, though, the rest of us deserve better. And, in particular, your D-6 constituency – myself included – deserve more.
Can you explain?,
Seniority system stays intact. However performance is added as a criteria. So if layoffs were necessary and two people had nearly equal seniority you could then make a decision based on something else rather than just time on the job.
Officer D,
Would be interested in your feedback on my article last week concerning police:
http://www.sanjoseinside.com/news/entries/02_28_11_we_pay_twice_for_affordable_housing/
I understand that if two people have the same seniority, they look at the time stamp on the app and whichever app was stamped first then that person has the most seniority.
Sir, My point is that the evaluation system itself is fairly worthless overall, having very little direct relevance to the doing of police work. And, since (in the public sector, at least) evaluations have minimal influence over raises, promotions, etc (at least that’s my observation after 11 years in the PD). Bottom line: if you stay on the job long enough, you get paid the same. Get promoted, you get paid a certain percentage more. Go to a specialized unit, you get a percentage more. As far as the paycheck goes, this is the epitome of egalitarianism. One could even argue that, at least in the case of law enforcement, this is a good and necessary state of things.
However, until and unless the flaws with the evaluation system – indeed with how business is done in general (issues such as the rule of 10 and other issues that have been raised)- the current system is really as close to fair as it gets. The alternatives are infighting, backbiting, advancement by any means, etc. and frankly, more of that is the last thing the PD needs.
That something else you identify is basically subjectivity and it virtually guarantees that good workers will be dismissed simply because they are not as ‘ambitious’ or don’t have quite as well-developed interpersonal skills or, frankly, are disinclined to kiss ass.
San Jose has much bigger issues to face than changing seniority-based layoffs. The PD especially does. Frankly, the idea of laying off cops is insane, considering the soft layoff that have already occurred. What do I mean by soft layoffs? Simply that, in the last couple of years, vacant positions that have been created by retirements and resignations have gone unfilled by recruitment. We’ve suffered 14% attrition over the last couple of years and laying off any more would be massively irresponsible. I can’t imagine any other city contemplating layoffs such as Mayor Reed has contemplated – except perhaps Oakland and Camden NJ, and look at how well that worked out for them.
With respect to your statements in your article on affordable housing, I’d say this: it’s one of two subjects on which you’ve written which thus far suggest we might have some meaningful common ground.
So-called affordable is one of the worst ‘civic programs’ perpetuated on the public, not least for the reasons you articulate. But there’s a larger issue, which you’ve also addressed which is that housing construction is absolutely out of control here in San Jose.
Frankly, I think the current general plan needs to be tossed out the window – preferably a very high one – and a new one enacted, one that ties populations growth to job growth and staffing public safety accordingly. After all, these three conditions are inextricably linked and San Jose is now reaping the whirlwind that is the result of failing to recognize this fact and make decisions/develop policy accordingly.
There must be someone WHO IS able to pull those strings to have the posts removed. It happened. It would have to be someone concerned enough that the statements would affect the City, so who is it that has this “in”, on the Inside?
I think it would be best to start with performance evaluations at the top. Like the mayor, council, city manager and finance director. All of whom are guilty of not being able to correctly forcast the budget for this city for several years. If I budgeted by work projects anywhere near as poorly as they have, I would have been fired long ago. I mean really, every few months it is the same excuse over and over again, “we did not see the increase in the deficet coming”. Yet they continue to hire consultants they cannot afford and forgo collecting rent due from “special” subsidized businesses.
Eric (editor)
For what it is worth, my posts, which were critical of Pierluigi’s idea, but were in good taste, were removed from this thread. I said nothing insulting toward Pierluigi, and presented my side as a long time patrol officer. My post was removed sometime today after it had been posted yesterday. I believe that you probably did not do it as you seem to have integrity. I hope that you can nip this problem in the bud for the credibility of SJI. One notion that I hope is not the case is that Pierluigi influenced someone into doing this but I honestly have my doubts seeing that is what happens on his public Facebook sight and the sign issue. Thanks….
It was in line with your posts, so I guess they removed the whole string. Thing is, there was nothing wrong with the string, other than the fact the PLO suggested you may want to think about working for Code Enforcement. I think it is a shame that they would just wipe out whole strings. Sure says a lot.
Apparently a handful of comments were accidentally deleted last week. Moderating comments involves a little bit of box-checking and button-clicking; I’m afraid someone checked the wrong box or clicked the wrong button.
I sincerely regret that this happened, because I appreciate that the SJI community of commenters care about San Jose and put a lot of thought into their posts. We’re committed to SJI serving as an open forum for ideas, and have never vetted the site with a political or ideological bias.
I need to note that the whole thread wasn’t removed, and that this was not an effort to purge SJI of comments critical of the council member.
Eric,
Thank you for the explanation.
Eric,
The same thing was said in the early 1970’s during the Watergate hearings. Sounds like a “Tricky Dick” Nixon answer to me.
You were so adamant that you “never deleted or censored” the posts. Accident or not, it was done and still happened….
Now you are pulling the old Watergate defense. As I remember Nixon tried pulling the same thing in not being truthful.
You “accidentally deleted” the posts, give me a break.
That’s like accidentally pulling the trigger of the sniper rifle that killed JFK, someone pulled the trigger or was it an accident?
I smell a conspiracy brewing… Accidentally deleted my a$$.
It’s called payoffs.
This post is an accident, are you going to delete this too?
Eric, you have to admit that it’s awfully suspicious that one of the posts which was removed is the one in which PLO suggests something illegal. I clearly remember the post to which Frank referred as well and was both floored and sickened that the idea was suggested at all as it certainly crossed the bounds of both common sense, and lawful employment practice.
I responded but somebody edited it. I could care less if he has a paid assistant or not.
Lots of great posts here, I’m surprised that most of them weren’t removed for being too factual. I see the Edit/Delete/Censor Nazi has been here trying to explain what happened to missing posts? Accident? Wow that’s a new one Eric. Are you falling on your sword?
Old Frank
People forget that the reasons for civil service protections, seniority rules, etc was to shield the actions of the public employee from the wrath of politics. The public employee/ civil “servant” is suppose to conduct his/her job without fear or favor of the political consequences. The police officer should be able to arrest the mayor or council person for DUI without fearing any consequence. The police detective should be able to conduct a fraud investigation on president of a bank, who knows the mayor, without showing “favor” for the sake of getting promoted or fearing the loss of his/her job. The code enforcement agent should be able to refuse, based on the rule of law, permits to some well connected fool at city hall… Civil Service job protections are there for a reason, look at the history of why this is so, especially for the police. The due process trumps the politically induced “memo”.
I is subtle.
I was with the city for 10yrs and on Friday March 18, 2011 they just terminated me. They might have taken my job for now, but they did not take my will and determination. I will make sure that the internal corruption changes. The city can not keep on harassing and subjecting city employees to hostile working environments. What I want to see is change. Everyone tells me how can 1 person make a difference. It just takes 1 person to get tired of the harassing and bullying and the corruption and not to be afraid to stand for what is right. A lot of city employees are scared to loose their jobs. Well I have nothing to loose now, but I do have something to gain and that is my dignity, my job back and to make sure that now else has to suffer what I did in the last 2 years. I am seeking legal counsel. Does anyone know of agency or employment lawyer that has stood against the city. Also thanks to the internet age, I know I can reach millions in a matter of seconds with Face book, Twitter, etc. In all of the years that I worked for the City, I have never felt so discriminated and ashamed of where I worked. In the last 2yrs the city administrators have become so negative and biased towards all city employees. Debra Figone said that they would not start the process of terminating employees for their Performance evaluations, this is not true. THEY HAVE STARTED!It was an honor at one time to work for the City which respected it’s employees and the public. Now upper management is just looking out for themselves making sure that they play the role on the outside in the public’s eye. Upper management wastes so much money on their private luncheons, where they say they are have training all day off site and when there are retirement parties during regular work hours a lot of upper management and pampered pet employees get to go to these functions on city time and do not have to use vacation time. There is so much more than this going on,it is ridiculous. Upper Management does not train their supervisor’s properly and therefore those supervisors do not implement the policies and guideline properly and they do not give performance evaluations as they should. Also when they do give performance evaluations it is for the cities benefit because the supervisor/Analysts can write anything they want even allegations that are not true, so they can use the performance evaluation against a city employee. The public has no idea what we as city employees are going through and being subjected to. The reason the city wants to get rid of the employees with tenure is because they do not want us talking about all of the internal corruption that is going on. For all of the new employees, well they just want a job and that is why they act like puppets and upper management pets, they will bend over backwards for them. Well I have had enough and I want the city to know, that if I am not telling the truth than they have nothing to worry about, right? The city does not even follow their own code of ethics about being truthful and honest. I was raised to always stand up for what is right and be honest, because at night when you go to bed, guess what, you have to hold yourself accountable for everything that you did that was wrong. I know in my hearts of hearts that I am telling the truth and in the end the truth will prevail!