Council President Anna C. Verna
Members of City Council
January 28, 2002
Page
Title
January 28, 2002
TO THE PRESIDENT AND MEMBERS OF THE
COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA:
I am returning herewith as disapproved, Bill Number 010493-A. Council passed this bill at its session on December 20, 2001.
Bill Number 010493-A proposes to amend section 20-101 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled “Residence Requirements,” to provide that an employee in the civil service need not be a “bona fide resident” of the City when appointed, but rather must establish and maintain bona fide residence in the City within six months after appointment. Simply put, this bill would completely eliminate the pre-employment residency requirement for civil service employment and only require that all new civil service employees establish residency in the city within six months.
It was asserted at the hearing for this bill that relaxing the residency requirement would make it both easier to attract highly qualified candidates to government service and would act as an indirect catalyst for attracting new residents to the City of Philadelphia.
However, not a shred of concrete credible evidence was presented to support either assertion. Individuals testified in support of the measure, but no witness offered tangible data to support the assertion that a residency requirement thwarts Philadelphia’s efforts to hire the best and the brightest and repealing it would increase the population of the city.
Under the present requirements, any individual hired for a civil service position must be a Philadelphia resident for at least one year prior to being appointed unless a waiver is granted. This requirement is significant and its importance should not be discounted. This requirement helps Philadelphians – people who have chosen to move here or who were born here and have chosen to stay here. This requirement helps those residents who have chosen to raise their families here, who have chosen to support the City and its neighborhoods. Quite simply, this requirement helps our residents and doing away with it hurts the very people who by their choice to live in Philadelphia – for whatever reason - have displayed in a very basic way their faith in the City. On the basis of wild speculation, we cannot recklessly dismantle something that helps everyday Philadelphians many of whom dream about City employment,.
Importantly, for a majority of the positions presently available in the civil service ranks, the City has a surplus of highly qualified applicants. Take, as an example, the position of firefighter. During the most recent recruitment for this position, the City received 9,075 applications. Of this number, 3,371 – or 37% - of the applicants took the required examination. At the present time, the Personnel Department is still scoring the test, but the Department is confident that it will easily meet its hiring needs as currently projected. Why should perfectly qualified City residents with roots in our City have to compete for some of the most sought after jobs in the country? We will first hire our own!
In supporting this important requirement, we cannot be unrealistic. We must expect occasional shortages in various job classes. The City currently has a very effective process to address potential shortages in applicants for specific job classes – the waiver. When a specific job class experiences occasional difficulty in attracting qualified applicants, the Personnel Director has the authority to grant a waiver of the pre-employment residency requirement for that job class. These waivers give new hires one year to move into the City. Presently, pre-employment residency waivers are in effect for approximately ninety (90) different job classes. The benefit of this procedure is that it is not permanent and can allow the City to be flexible in its hiring practices while still supporting the spirit of the residency requirement.
Without question, I am dedicated to hiring the very best. It is our duty to ensure that this City’s government is efficient, effective, and run in a fiscally responsible manner. That includes hiring only the very best individuals to do the work that needs to be done. However, that does not mean we must abandon rules and regulations intended to protect the very citizens who comprise this great City.
Respectfully submitted,
John F. Street
Mayor