PHOENIX - State senators voted Wednesday to give the governor and her department heads more power to discipline and fire employees.
The measure approved on a party-line vote says anyone hired after the law takes effect this summer will not be entitled to the protections of the state personnel system. Those protections provide employees with some rights to hearings and appeals to independent boards.
Instead, with only some exceptions, the decision of the supervisor would be the last word.
"That's how it works in the real world," said Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City. "That's what the public expects."
Wednesday's vote came after the Republican majority rejected Democratic amendments to monitor if the change will result in cronyism. The bill now goes to the House for final approval.
People are also reading…
"Let's talk about how much power the governor's going to have," said Sen. Steve Gallardo, D-Phoenix. "We're now putting the Governor's Office way up there to have the ability to terminate whoever she wants, whenever she wants."
The changes are being pushed by Gov. Jan Brewer. She complained it is currently too hard to discipline or fire state workers, due to decisions being overturned by the Personnel Board.
But Sen. Linda Lopez, D-Tucson, said the record shows otherwise. Citing figures from the Personnel Board, she said 331 disciplinary actions were appealed over a six-year period. Of those, Lopez said, just 26 were overturned or modified.
"The assertion that it's difficult to terminate employees in the state of Arizona is just flat wrong," she said.
The Governor's Office has estimated about three-fourths of 36,000 employees in the executive branch are covered by personnel rules. There already are some exceptions, such as those working for the Department of Gaming.
Brewer contends if HB 2571 becomes law, the percentage of "covered" employees will drop to just about a quarter four years from now.
Not all of that will be because of turnover and new workers being hired outside the merit system. Brewer also contends there are existing workers who will be willing to give up their protections.
The governor is offering a carrot of sorts: The budget approved Tuesday contains a provision for a one-time 5 percent bonus for nine months for any "uncovered" worker, a bonus not available to others.
Whether that will be enough remains to be seen.
Brewer asked lawmakers to provide uncovered workers with a permanent 5 percent pay hike. But lawmakers balked, saying they are not sure there will be enough money in future budgets to sustain that spending.
But gubernatorial press aide Matthew Benson said raise or not, Brewer believes many state workers will opt for uncovered status.
He pointed out covered workers are paid based on job descriptions, with someone in a particular category allowed to be paid only within that range.
"It's going to give state supervisors more leeway to reward their best workers," Benson said,
"If you are one of those best workers, you have nothing to fear with personnel reform," he continued. "It will make you eligible for pay increases as sought by your supervisor, as opposed to the current system where you have to go to the Legislature to see that entire class of employees receives an equal pay increase."
Sen. Olivia Cajero-Bedford, D-Tucson, attempted to amend the legislation to require an audit every three years of all the suspensions and terminations of both covered and uncovered employees to determine the effects of scrapping the merit system.
"Transparency is the antidote for possible personnel abuses that are made possible by the return of a patronage, cronyism system," she said.
Republicans refused. They also rejected a proposal by Sen. David Lujan, D-Phoenix, to create a special "ombudsman" to hear complaints, though that person could not overturn a decision to discipline or fire the worker.
Senate Majority Leader Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, said the changes are appropriate, saying they simply bring state government into line with what is done in private industry.
"You want to give people who run state agencies (and) departments more control over their employees as you would if you were in the private sector," he said.
"If you have someone who you believe is an ineffective, inefficient employee, you want to be able to either rehabilitate or terminate them if you need to," Biggs explained. "That's what the private sector would do."
Benson said fears of cronyism and political favoritism are unwarranted, pointing to the state agencies that already are exempt from the personnel system.
"We haven't seen issues in those agencies," he said. "We haven't seen any of the rapid turnover or anything of that sort that the Democrats and other doomsayers are talking about."
The legislation does retain existing rights for all workers under state "whistle-blower" laws, which protect employees who report illegal conduct. But the GOP majority rejected a bid by Sen. Paula Aboud, D-Tucson, to expand the scope of those protections.
On StarNet: To read more about local and state government and political news, go to azstarnet.com/ news/local/govt-and-politics
Did you know?
State government (not including the University of Arizona) is Southern Arizona's third-largest employer, with about 9,060 full-time-equivalent workers at the start of 2012, the Star 200 survey shows.
