Relates to procedures to be followed in appointing a hearing officer for removal and disciplinary action against certain public employees

• Democratic2

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why Robert Jackson says this is needed

The purpose of this bill is to ensure an impartial and fair due process hearing for permanent non-New York City government employees who are the subject of disciplinary charges as outlined in Section 75 of the Civil Service Law. The bill maintains existing disciplinary process for New York City employees, however, due to the decades-long success that the Trials Division of the New York City Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH) has had in adjudicating these cases within its jurisdic- tion and the corpus of case law it has established by its rulings. Under the present provisions of Section 75 of the Civil Service Law, individuals who have attained permanent appointment as employees under the jurisdiction of the Civil Service Law may be removed from their positions or have other disciplinary actions taken (i.e., suspension without pay, demotion from grade and title) after a hearing held before the officer or body who has brought the charges. The employing officer or body therefore becomes both the prosecutor and the judge of the permanent employees actions. This bill would provide a more fair procedure in which the hearing is before an impartial arbitrator selected upon mutual agreement of the parties from a list maintained for this purpose by the public employment relations board. The hearing officer would hear the case and determine the appropriate penalty, if any. Such a system would give both the employer and the employee a fair opportunity to present their respective sides of the case and allow for impartial adjudication. In addition, by protecting civil service employees from being suspended without pay during such procedures, this bill conforms to disciplinary hearing procedures brought against tenured teachers pursuant to Section 3020A of the Education Law, thus ensuring the same due process for civil service employees.

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.