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the municipal secretary desktop reference manual - Southwestern ...

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MUNICIPAL HIRING POLICY<br />

For local government, <strong>the</strong> message should be: The largest portion of any <strong>municipal</strong> budget<br />

goes to support employees’ salaries and benefits. Once hired, whe<strong>the</strong>r through merit or patronage,<br />

most employees will be with <strong>the</strong> <strong>municipal</strong>ity for <strong>the</strong> long term. Building a case for dismissal is<br />

difficult. Unionized environments provide protection. Once hired, court decisions make it illegal to<br />

dismiss most "political" appointments, except for cause related to performance. The employment<br />

management goal, <strong>the</strong>n, should be to hire "winners" in <strong>the</strong> first place. If <strong>the</strong> government cannot find<br />

or afford winners, hire individuals with potential, and turn <strong>the</strong>m into winners through coaching and<br />

training.<br />

A good place to start assessing <strong>the</strong> <strong>municipal</strong>ity's effectiveness in recruiting and hiring is to<br />

ask <strong>the</strong> following questions:<br />

1. Have specific qualification requirements been set for all jobs?<br />

2. Is <strong>the</strong>re a policy in effect on how vacancies will be advertised and who may apply?<br />

3. Is an application form used to ga<strong>the</strong>r data from applicants? If so, does <strong>the</strong> form only<br />

ask for job-related information?<br />

4. Is a system used to examine applicants for <strong>the</strong>ir ability to perform <strong>the</strong> job to be filled?<br />

How are examination results used in choosing a person to fill a job?<br />

5. Is <strong>the</strong>re a policy on eligibility of current employees to apply for vacant positions?<br />

Under what conditions are current employees given p<strong>reference</strong> in filling vacancies?<br />

If <strong>the</strong> answer to any of <strong>the</strong> above questions is "no," <strong>the</strong> <strong>municipal</strong>ity obviously does not have<br />

a written hiring policy. To ensure that <strong>the</strong> best possible staff is assembled for a local government<br />

unit, it is imperative that <strong>the</strong> governing body adopts and adheres to such a policy. A jurisdiction's<br />

hiring policy should include specific language that outlines <strong>the</strong> procedures of advertising for<br />

positions, application review process, actual hiring process, and <strong>the</strong> probationary period. A sample<br />

of an acceptable hiring policy follows.<br />

I-27<br />

Revised July 2003

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