Jackson Free Press

JACKSON — The City of Jackson Civil Service Commission reinstated an employee of 25 years, who had been laid off before others with less tenure, raising questions about an Aug. 11 change to rules outlining how the administration chooses which employees leave first. The layoffs are part of the City's budget-cutting efforts, but some feel they are targeting the wrong employees.

"Our only conclusion is that this must be the current City administration's attempt to lay off long-time city employees in an effort to keep the individuals that have been hired since [the administration] has been in office, in place," Lilli Evans Bass, attorney for the Mississippi Alliance for State Employees, or MASE, said after the Civil Service Commission meeting.

The State-authorized and City-operated Civil Service Commission oversees certain personnel matters, including "establishing policies for transfers, reinstatements, demotions, suspensions, removals and discharges of employees; and establishing criteria for reduction in force," the City's website explains. Several other municipalities in the state also have their own Civil Service Commissions. Although state statute allows for the commission, the mayor appoints the members to staggered six-year terms.

The two matters before the commission Tuesday were Willie Thompson's reinstatement and a petition from MASE and several City employees to repeal a recent change in rule for the "criteria for reduction in force."

Thompson, an associate planner with the City, was laid off in August but protested through the Civil Service Commission. The City did not object to his reinstatement, a sign that his layoff may have been against the rules no matter which version of the "criteria for reduction in force" was applied.

"Even under this new rule change, Mr. Thompson should not have been one of the individuals slated for termination if you go by department," Bass said. "I can only assume what the City was attempting to do was to use that new exception that they have added to the rule to try and fire a 25-year civil servant in place of two individuals that had only been there since 2014."

As for the petition to reverse the rule change, it all started when the then-chief administrator of the City went before the Civil Service Commission on Aug. 11 to ask for an alteration to the rule.

The Jackson Free Press did not attend the meeting where the commission altered the rules, but Bass provided minutes that give a rough outline of what happened.

"Gus McCoy," who was chief administrator for the City of Jackson at the time, "came before the Commission to further explain his reasons for requesting revisions to Civil Service Rule VIII, Section 3; 1.1," the minutes detail. The reasons for the change were laid out in a presentation McCoy gave on Aug. 11 on the "City's financial status," and included the time required to train new employees, and maintaining a level of service despite the lay-offs.

"If it becomes necessary because of lack of work or funds or other contingencies to lay off employees within a given classification in any department," the new rule states, "no classification shall cause a displacement of a position in a different department. Temporary and probationary employees in a job classification shall be laid off first; thereafter, the order of reduction in force shall be determined on the basis of seniority, except in a case where there is only one employee performing a service and that skill is essential to the operation of the department."

This is a significant change from the old rule, which stated that determination of who to lay off first was related to the "classification" of employees across the City. MASE, through its attorney, intended to challenge the rule change based on its ambiguity. Not only was the rule not specific, Bass told the commission, but the information about the change was not disseminated to City employees, leaving them in the dark about who would keep or lose their jobs during one of the most cash-strapped budgets in the last few years.

On Tuesday, however, the commission did not consider MASE's petition after Special Assistant to the City Attorney James Anderson argued that the 10-day window to file petitions had passed, because the commission worked "loosely" under the Rules for Civil Procedure.

"The City has argued that the commission cannot hear our motion for reconsideration and repeal of the changes to the reduction in force, because they have loosely, and I am quoting the city's lawyer, adopted the Rules of Civil Procedure, so that had to be heard in 10 days," Bass said after the meeting. "We're arguing that the employees of the City of Jackson were not notified within 10 days in order to be able to file a notice of reconsideration."

"In fact, to date there has been no formal notice of this rule change to the civil service employees that this affects," Bass said.

Bass said that MASE had already filed an appeal to the Hinds County Circuit Court on Sept. 12, presumably in anticipation of their petition failing in front of the commission. In the court filing, MASE outlines its objection to the rule change. "Additionally," the filing states, "the decision of the Civil Service Commission is ambiguous in that it fails to address the implications of the rule change and/or revision, and it wholly fails to define class of employees affected by said rule change and/or revision."

Calls and emails to the city administration were not returned by press time. Email city reporter Tim Summers Jr. at [email protected]. See more local news at jfp.ms/localnews.