Title
Calling on Mayor James F. Kenney and his administration to conduct an annual review of how the City's elimination of the Rule of Two has impacted workforce diversity in both hiring and promotion.
Body
WHEREAS, In November 2021, a majority of voters in Philadelphia voted to eliminate the "Rule of Two," which dictated that under the law (as per the Home Rule Charter) that when filling single-position vacancies for Civil Service jobs, only the two highest ranking candidates on the eligible list were submitted to the requesting Department for an interview. The Department then selected one of the two candidates to fill the position; and
WHEREAS, Before its elimination, many had argued for decades that the Rule of Two discriminated against minorities and women for entry-level hiring, but especially with regard to promotions; and
WHEREAS, A 2018 Report by the Pew Charitable Trust - Hiring and Employment in Philadelphia Government - revealed that the Rule of Two did not provide managers with the latitude to make employment decisions that fit the unique nature of certain jobs; the Rule of Two limited hiring managers to the two top-scoring candidates for each civil service vacancy (meant to place emphasis on merit selection, the rule gave hiring managers little discretion in assembling their teams); and because the Rule of Two drew hard-and-fast distinctions between candidates of roughly equal qualifications, it could undermine a manager's ability to hire a diverse workforce; and
WHEREAS, In a 2017 comparison with 35 other peer cities, it was found that no other municipality adhered to a Rule of Two. All had more expansive rules (Rule of Five, Rule of Ten, etc.), and approximately 20 percent used a varying rule, which is what Philadelphia chose to do by eliminating the Rule of Two; and
WHEREAS, By eliminating the Rule of Two, the goal is to increase the diversity of candidate pools and also to allow the City to leverage the use of alternate selection tools like...
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