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Trends in Public Personnel Organization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

John M. Pfiffner
Affiliation:
University of Southern California

Extract

There are at the present time at least four interrelated trends in the field of public personnel administration. In the first place, emphasis is shifting away from the old evangelism which emphasized the negative aspects of civil service toward placing greater reliance in the perfection of a technique of administration. Secondly, there is increasing dissatisfaction with removal provisions which require a formal hearing with right of counsel before a board independent of the administration. The third phase involves a changed status of the civil service commission: it is to be either abolished entirely or deprived of its administrative duties and confined to quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial activities. The administrative aspects of personnel work are to be placed under a single head responsible to the governor, mayor, or manager.

Type
Public Administration
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1932

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References

1 12 National Municipal Review, 462 (August, 1923)Google Scholar.

2 The Merit System in Government, pp. 70-77.

3 Report on a Survey of the Organization and Administration of the State Government of New Jersey, p. 43.

4 Ibid., p. 94.

5 Findings and Recommendations of a Survey of the Administrative Structure of the State Government of Arkansas, August, 1930, pp. 117-123.

6 State Administrative Consolidation in Maine, 1930, p. 34Google Scholar.

7 Report of a Survey of the Organization and Administration of the State Government of North Carolina, p. 118.

8 Report of the Waterbury Charter Commission, 1930, p. 947Google Scholar.

9 Ibid., p. 703.

10 At pp. 702-703, there is an excellent presentation of the arguments against taking dismissals out of the hands of the administration.

11 Draft of a State Civil Service Law, secs. I, XII.

12 Ibid., sec. I (a).

13 Ibid., sec. I (b).

14 Ibid., sec. XII.

15 Ibid., secs. XIX, XV.

16 One ia compelled to believe that some change of mind has come over the National Civil Service Eeform League by reading previous pronouncements of the then secretary, Marsh, H. W., entitled “The Merit System in City Manager Government,” in 7 City Manager Magazine, 911 (Sept., 1925)Google Scholar. Formerly it was argued that there should be an independent recruiting agency in manager cities.

17 Draft of a City Civil Service Law, sec. I (b).

18 Ibid., sec. XXV.

19 City Managers' Yearbook, 1931, pp. 256259Google Scholar; 13 Public Management, 66-68 (Feb., 1931); 8 Public Personnel Studies, 144-146 (Oct.-Nov., 1930).

20 Letter from Mr. Russell Forbes, dated July 17, 1931.

21 Telford, Fred, “The Organization for Handling Personnel Work,” in City Managers' Yearbook, 1931, pp. 190197Google Scholar.

22 Ibid., p. 195.

23 Ibid., p. 191.

24 See Telford, , “Recent Personnel Legislation,” in 24 Amer. Polit. Sci. Rev., 104 (Feb., 1930)Google Scholar.

25 See declaration on this point by the technical section on organization of the Civil Service Assembly of the United States and Canada, in 7 Publio Personnel Studies, 136-137 (Sept.-Oct., 1929).

26 See mayor's message, Proposed Budget, Fiscal Year, 1930-31, p. 3.

27 Public Personnel Studies, 57 (March, 1928)Google Scholar.

28 A letter, dated July 31, 1931, from Mr. C. N. Amsden, general manager of the Los Angeles city civil service commission, states that wherever the personnel agency has been placed directly under the mayor, governor, or city manager it “has been given far more authority and real power than it ever had before.” In the state of California, the change resulted in an increase of the budget for personnel work from approximately $50,000 to $75,000 a year.

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