The Personnel Appeals Board is now scheduled to meet and deliver a decision in the matter of the appeal of the Sergeant's Promotional Exam on July 12th. We're now over two years into this process and are pleased to finally see it come to some sort of resolution. Though it was disappointing to see the Town continue their trend of doing everything in their power to keep this process hidden in the shadows by even excluding the Appellants themselves from the last hearing on June 30th where their attorney delivered their closing statement. I can't think of any legitimate proceeding where a plaintiff or appellant would be excluded from their own hearing where remarks are being given on their behalf. It defies logic.
This entire mess began because of the Town's complete lack of transparency with the stakeholders. Clearly they have learned nothing from it because all they have done throughout the process is double down on that lack of transparency. Until the entire testing and promotional process is reformed and made to be completely impartial, fair, and open, with a clearly defined rubric and rules, it's very likely that these problems will continue because employees and the public will not have faith in it.
The Union has approached the Town numerous times in the past two years with ideas on how to fix the testing process to ensure it is completely fair. We've even asked to simply have a meeting where we could all sit down to discuss the matter and try to come to a mutually agreeable solution. Yet every single time we've asked, the Town has refused to even have a discussion with us. It's clear that they have no interest whatsoever in fixing this problem. Meanwhile the Town is bleeding tens of thousands of dollars in overtime costs while the Supervisor shortages continue as the appeals process plays out.
No comments:
Post a Comment