The completely underrated Mid-80’s classic involved a a cross country road trip for John Cusack. He is going to visit his friend Anthony Edwards on the West Coast who will introduce him to a college co-ed who is described as a “sure thing.” And by “introduced” they mean much more than that, but I’ll spare you the specifics ( this a family friendly blog after all! ).
The point of the movie and the roundabout way I will tie it to State House politics is this: there is no such thing as a sure thing. It is never as simple as someone makes it sound.
Last week, Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver announced a deal on arbitration reform. When I say “deal” it was pretty much a deal amongst Democrats and their constituent groups since the Governor had no part of it, and subsequently reminded us of that at his own presser shortly thereafter. ( The Governor teed off on the Democrats for failing to enact the tool kit…although I might be one of the few people who thinks that they are actually not that far apart on the substance of arbitration reform. But that is for another day. )
At the same announcement, Sweeney indicated they are “very close” on civil service reform. That being the other “big game” that needs to be successfully hunted and speared to finish the tool kit.
But one Democrat tells me that you simply cannot take away seniority. If that is the case, civil service reform won’t save all that much $. Roughly a third of all municipalaties have civil service. That is it. And if you can’t fire the guy who makes $95,000 for pushing paper ( slowly ), because he has 25 more years than the young go-getter who actually cares about his job, the argument for civil service as a catch-all for savings weakens.
This Democrat says seniority is basically a “property right.” What that means and how far courts would be willing to go to protect it remain to be seen. We are in unprecendented economic times, and many of these issues take us into into unchartered legal territory ( although the court tends to be liberal which works against those who want to challenge some of these basic assumptions now ).
Here is what we do know. Section 11A:8-1 of the civil service statute requires layoffs to occur “in inverse order of seniority.” That is the law. It could be changed by the legislature, but as we just noted that would likely be challenged in court…and any good lawyer will tell you that you never want to end up in court if you can avoid it. ( Wow. Did I just endorse back-room deals?? )
So, could civil service reform be useful without eliminating seniority? Sure it could. The 4000 to 5000 state government titles could be streamlined ( I mean, there are supposedly 17 titles for tree cutters ! ).
In fact, almost all of these tool kit items make for better government, and should be enacted. But will they actually reduce costs for towns? Some would argue that is less than a sure thing.