Tumwater is working to hurry-up civil service hiring processes

Tumwater’s Civil Service Commission agreed to modify its hiring procedure to expedite the process.

The city’s director of administrative service and secretary chief examiner James Trujillo presented two changes during a meeting on August 10. The first modification deals with removing a written test for the Police Services Specialist II post, a support role for the administrative and enforcement staff of the police department. Instead, there will be a written evaluation to assess the applicant’s level of knowledge, skills, and competencies.

Applicants will be given a questionnaire and are expected to provide standard responses. Their answers will be evaluated by subject matter experts, who will be given a list of standardized responses to help them fairly grade the responses.

No-shows

The commission hopes that this change in the procedure will increase the turn-up rate of applicants.

“Last time we did this, we invited people to come and take a test,” Trujillo said. “Something like 10 to 15% did not show up that were invited.”

Trujillo added that some who responded positively did not appear on the test date.

“We lose candidates because they get other jobs as we're going through this lengthy process,” Trujillo commented, saying that he estimates saving as much as two weeks with scheduling the test and getting the results back.

Provisional certification of eligibility lists

Another modification to the hiring procedure is allowing for the provisional certification of eligibility lists. Under a new rule, the chief examiner can approve a provisional certificate of eligibility list under the following situations:

• when operational needs require timely action for recruitment
• when the commission is unable to meet to certify eligibility
• for continuous recruitment eligibility lists

A report of this provincial certification will be presented at the next regular civil service commission meeting, where it will likely be officially certified. No hire will occur before the certification of the eligibility list by the commission.

In formulating the language of this new rule, Trujillo sought legal advice from the Municipal Research and Services Center (MSRC) of Washington State and Tumwater City Attorney Karen Kirkpatrick. Though MSRC had informed Trujillo that they do not have any particular expertise in civil service matters, they cited examples of other Washington cities which allow provisional or temporary appointments.