Number of state workers outside civil service system on the rise

The number of state workers covered by the Civil Service Act has dropped since July, when new rules giving state agencies more flexibility on workers’ classifications went into effect.

Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration successfully pushed for a bill during the most recent legislative session that would allow state agencies to offer state workers incentives to give up their civil service protections and become “unclassified.” The bill also granted agencies more flexibility when new positions became available to make those positions unclassified.

Classified employees, who are covered by the Civil Service Act, can only be fired with cause. Unclassified employees, on the other hand, are at-will employees and can be fired for any reason.

Since the law went into effect in July, the number of unclassified employees working for the state of Kansas has grown from 4,706 to 5,002 – an increase of 296 – as of Sept. 16, according to data from the Department of Administration. During the same period the number of classified employees dropped from 12,565 to 12,224 – a decrease of 341.

The numbers account for new hires and retirements, but they also reflect that some state workers are giving up their civil service protections and becoming unclassified in exchange for raises and other incentives.

The most significant example of that so far was in late August when the Kansas Corporation Commission announced that 76 of its 94 classified employees had agreed to become unclassified so that they could receive a 7.5 percent salary increase. The rest kept their civil service protections.

John Milburn, spokesman for the Department of Administration, which handles human resources for the state, said that classified positions are tightly defined and workers are restricted from doing tasks outside their classification. He argued that shifting to unclassified positions presents benefits for both the worker and the agency.

“You’re going to get a little more pay,” Milburn said of the employees agreeing to the change. “And you’re also going to be able to learn some new skills and to exercise new skills. … It’s a chance for growth within that agency.”

“For the agency it’s a better tool for managing the personnel,” Milburn continued. “Obviously, resources are finite – both human and monetary – and this is an opportunity to maximize those resources. … They can perform more functions, more duties. It may be a way to balance the resources. Maybe you no longer need as many people.”

The Kansas Organization of State Employees, a union that represents state workers, has been highly critical of the policy.

Rebecca Proctor, the union’s executive director, accused the administration of incentivizing unclassified status in case it has to make drastic budget cuts – like it did during the past fiscal year – since unclassified workers would have less protection.

“Unclassified employees would not have the same sort of protections that a classified employee would have with regard to layoff or furlough or reemployment,” she said. “A lot of those employees can just simply be fired.”

Milburn said “the fear that there will be wholesale dismissals of people or getting rid of them for other reasons, or no reason at all” was misguided. He said agencies would not be making the investment in raises for their workers to simply to turn around and fire them.

Proctor said it’s difficult for state workers, who have not received an across-the-board raise since 2009, to pass up the offer of a raise. She said the decision is further complicated by this week’s news that state workers will have to pay higher health insurance premiums and face more out-of-pocket costs in 2016 under a new health plan.

Proctor said that under the old civil service system the state had a centralized system of determining job grades and pay, “and now all of that is left in the hands of the individual agency secretary.”

She said a better-funded agency could offer a higher salary than another agency for the same type of work, which she said “creates a situation where the state is cannibalizing talent from its own internal agencies.”

“It’s about the agency’s ability to pay. And so you’re going to start having your most talented people gravitating to the agencies that can pay more,” Proctor said. “So you’re creating haves and have-nots within the state agencies, which is a bad way to manage personnel.”

This story was originally published September 30, 2015 at 6:24 AM with the headline "Number of state workers outside civil service system on the rise."