College, School Workers to Vote on Scrapping Merit System

Classified employees in the Glendale Unified School District and at Glendale Community College are seeking to abolish the merit personnel system, a process similar to civil service that is intended to protect the interests of workers but has instead become the target of bitter complaints.

The school district’s classified employees--clerks, maintenance workers, managers and others who are not certificated as instructors or administrators--are to vote in late February on whether to abolish the merit system and return all authority over hiring, promotion and transfers to the district’s Board of Education. Employees there have described the current system as cumbersome and Neanderthal.

A similar referendum is expected to occur early next year at Glendale Community College, where officials soon will verify the validity of employee petitions calling for a vote.

The two votes could bring an end to the merit systems by June 30 and affect more than 1,250 classified employees who work in the two districts.

Classified employees say the system, designed to expedite job appointments and to provide an objective grievance process, has done just the opposite, frustrating them and handicapping school operations in the process.

Critics say the three-member personnel commissions that administer merit systems meet briefly only once a month, know little about employee issues and are unresponsive to workers. Often the personnel commissioners who sit on the boards “rubber stamp” the recommendations of the personnel director instead of making independent, objective decisions, critics charge.

Supporters of the merit system say that despite its shortcomings it is the best way to make sure that hiring and promotions in school districts and colleges are fair. They argue that if boards of education are given unquestioned authority over personnel matters, employees will miss out on having an disinterested body to review complaints.

“I think there may be some misperceptions about how the system works and what guarantees would be lost if they were to throw the system out,” said Don Hanson, a Los Angeles attorney recently appointed as a Glendale Community College personnel commissioner. “I don’t think there’s any guarantee to employees that if the merit system goes, there is any particular system they can expect to have.”

But Mary Meehan, a computer programmer for the school district and president of its classified employees’ union, said: “We really feel like there’s been a message delivered here--that people aren’t happy with the status quo. The bottom line is, it can’t get any worse than it has been.”

The Glendale Board of Education was informed Tuesday that the referendum on the merit system has been scheduled for Feb. 23 through March 1. A simple majority of votes would terminate the system, administrators say.

The college Board of Trustees is to determine Jan. 22 whether community college employees garnered enough signatures on their petitions to call for a vote.

Merit systems became popular in the state more than 60 years ago as a way to address flagrant patronage problems in schools’ personnel practices, according to Lee Alarid, personnel administrator for the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

The Glendale school district adopted its system in 1966, and the community college followed suit two years later.

Typically, the three-member personnel commission oversees hiring procedures and promotions and hears employee grievances. The members, who are appointed to serve three-year terms, are not answerable to a school board or superintendent and appoint the district’s personnel director.

“In theory, it sounds very good,” said Jeanne Rees, a library clerk at GCC who has helped lead the fight against the college’s merit system. “It was brought in to make job testing and appointments fair. But I think there’s some inherent flaw in the system. I’ve never seen it work out.”

Additionally, employees say, the job application process is cumbersome and time-consuming. As a result, weeks may pass before vacant positions are filled or promotions are considered.

“It’s asinine what you have to go through to get a job here,” said Bobbie Brundige, a school district account clerk and chairwoman of the Committee for Responsible Personnel Practices, which led the campaign to abolish the merit system. She called the system “Neanderthal.”

Employees contend that the advent of state education codes, labor laws and collective bargaining have brought broad protections for classified workers, and thus have rendered the merit system redundant and obsolete.

Of 700 school districts statewide that enroll enough students to be eligible for a merit system, about 100 have one. Of about 106 eligible community colleges, only six still use the system, education officials said.

“What we have now is a system based on a certain set of conditions that existed almost 60 years ago,” said Alarid, the personnel administrator. “We’re talking about a time period that was a completely different world.”

The school district’s system has been under fire from employees for several years, said Meehan, who has worked there for 19 years. Dissatisfaction peaked earlier this year, when Brundige’s committee waged an aggressive petition campaign to abolish the system. About 606 employees of 1,006 on the district payroll signed, she said.

At Glendale Community College, the Equitable Personnel Practices Task Force in four days gathered signatures from about 56% of the college’s 250 classified employees. They were required to collect only 40% to call a vote.

Employees of both the college and the district said they want their respective boards of education, which now handle budget issues affecting classified employees, to take over personnel matters as well. As elected officials, board members would be more responsive to and knowledgeable about employee concerns and demands, they argued.

But merit system advocates warned that such a change would not necessarily lead to more acceptable handling of personnel matters. They warn that its termination could leave classified employees unprotected and their interests unrepresented.

“I certainly think the taxpayers are getting their money’s worth by having the merit system for protection,” former Glendale Community College Personnel Commissioner Carol Ross said.