In our practice in White Plains, NY we have seen many municipal employees, a good number of those employees have protected civil service status. Employees are appointed pursuant to the New York state civil service law, a civil service eligible list, and they are appointed from the three top individuals on that list, after they pass the probationary period. It could be 26 weeks, it could be a year or some other length, then that employee has permanent civil service status. The only way to discipline such a person is pursuant to particular provisions of the civil service law and those provisions require that the employee be served with charges, and if the employee wants to, there will be a hearing on those charges. Furthermore, the hearing will be before an appointed hearing officer and the hearing officer is appointed by the employer. The appointing authority and the hearing officer will take testimonies and exhibits and will make a recommendation to the appointing authority which that person can follow or not. Often times, when it’s the first situation and charges are involved there can be a negotiated resolution, if one is suspended or terminated there is the ability down the road to challenge that determination by taking an article 78 proceeding in the state supreme court.
This informational blog post was provided by Jane Gould, an experienced White Plains, New York Employee Lawyer.
