Lacey discusses proposed changes in civil service roles

The City of Lacey’s Civil Service Commission (CSC) conducted a hybrid meeting on Monday, November 7, to discuss proposed changes to the duties of the chief examiner and civil service secretary.

“Functionally, we have separated the examiner's duties from the duties of the Civil Service secretary because it is a pretty good portion of work,” Acting Human Resources Director and Civil Service Examiner Leilani Jensen said.

“There are places in our civil service rules that indicate the position is separate,” Jensen clarified.

According to Jensen, the Police Department kept them busy, and they would like to maintain those roles separately when it comes to which position function is in charge of a specific work.

“We would like to put forward for consideration that the commission delegates the full civil service examiner duties to Vennessa,” Jensen added, referring to Human Resources Analyst and Civil Service Secretary Vennessa Medford, “so we would actually have both the examiner and the civil service secretary duties.”

CSC Chair Jerry Wilkins furthered that the roles should be defined, “I don't have an issue with the separation with the consolidation of the duties. Consolidation is not an issue other than the fact that we would need to identify the task.”

Jensen responded that the commission might not necessarily change and just add a citation to the current rules.

“There could be some citation at the beginning of our civil service rules. We could just say that the city will continue to follow the RCW (Revised Code of Washington) and when determined necessary by HR (human resources), the functions of [the] secretary and civil service examiner may be split,” Jensen suggested.

“So what were you saying is, we can consolidate it, but we still have the flexibility of separating it, but not changing the rule,” asked Wilkins.

Jensen confirmed, “Yes... the primary change is for the Commission to consider having Vennessa be the designated civil service examiner come the next meeting.”

The commission plans to connect with other jurisdictions with civil service examiners and secretaries and see how they were incorporating similar language regarding their roles.