Commissioner Murman quoted in this Creative Loafing article on the Civil Service Board:
Plan to cripple Hillsborough County Civil Services Board remains on track
Mitch Perry, Creative Loafing
Dec 2, 2013
The Hillsborough County legislative delegation met to discuss local bills on Monday
The local delegation of Hillsborough County lawmakers voted this morning to take a bill up to Tallahassee next spring that could see the power of the County’s Civil Service Board be severely limited — if not slowly killed.
The bill is being sponsored in the House by Dana Young (R-Tampa), who said that the world of local government and human resources has changed dramatically since the 1950’s, when the agency was conceived. The board works with all 21 of the county’s public agencies, classifying workers and setting pay scales.
One thing that the bill would not change is the board’s power to handle grievances for employee terminations, demotions and suspensions.
The County Commission and all of the publicly elected agency heads, such as Tax Assessor Doug Belden, strongly support the move. Although he said it was nothing personal, Belden blasted officials with the county agency, saying Civil Services was “not a true partner“ and works in a “non-collaborative manner.”
Accusations that the Civil Services Board simply creates too much bureaucracy was the general theme of the discussion. County Commissioner Sandy Murman said there was a need for the county to hire only “The best and the brightest,” and that Civil Service was a barrier to implementing that. County Administrator Mike Merrill agreed, saying the move would benefit taxpayers by eliminating a layer of duplicative services.
The man on the hot seat and having to defend the agency was Dane Peterson, who heads the Civil Service Board. Acknowledging that he wasn’t resistant to change, he said the agency had cut costs by 17 percent over the past six years, while at the same time adding services to various agencies, such as with Doug Belden’s Tax Assessor’s office.
“My point is we not only welcome opportunities for improvement, we seek them out,” Peterson said, adding that he has been shut out of reform efforts — a comment that seemed to rankle Belden and Clerk of the Courts Pat Frank, both of whom said they had talked with Peterson in the past.
Brandon-area state Senator Tom Lee said it sounded to him like the bill would ultimately kill the agency outright, though not at once. Bill sponsor Dana Young disagreed, saying the proposed law had been structured to give the Civil Services Board an opportunity to “retool.” And she insisted it was employee-friendly. “We need to focus on employees, not process,” she maintained.
Although Lee said he still had issues with the legislation, he ultimately supported it. Only two Democrats — Senator Arthenia Joyner and Representative Darryl Rouson — voted against the bill.
