Employees holding positions in the classified service at the time of the adoption of this charter who were appointed after test and certification to such positions, shall be continued in their respective positions without further examination, until lawfully separated from their positions. Employees of the City at the time of the adoption of this charter and employees of any other governmental agency who may become employees of the City by virtue of amendment of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the enactment of any legislation required by such amendment, who were not appointed after civil service test and certification shall also be continued in their respective positions provided that within one year after this charter takes effect or within one year after any such constitutional amendment and such legislation become effective they pass a qualifying test prescribed by the Personnel Director and approved by the Civil Service Commission. Those who fail to so qualify shall be dismissed from their positions within thirty days after the establishment of an eligible list for their respective positions. Nothing herein shall preclude the reclassification or reallocation as provided by the civil service regulations of any position held by any such employee.
ANNOTATION
Sources: A Model State Civil Service Law, Section 11.
Purposes: 1. The Annotations to the provision appearing in "A Model State Civil Service Law" reads as follows:
"By far the most common method provided in civil service laws for determining the status of incumbents has been ‘blanketing in'. Under such procedure a person holding a position in the ‘classified service' at the time the act takes effect becomes a classified service employee without regard to formal proof of fitness and is thereafter subject in all respects to the provisions of the act. Another method often resorted to is to require incumbents to qualify after noncompetitive examinations to retain their places. A less common method gives no privilege of continuance in employment to incumbents.
"The method proposed in this draft, which has been employed in some jurisdictions, represents a middle ground compromise. It provides for the establishment of reasonable standards of fitness for retention in the service and yet avoids the obvious administrative difficulties resulting from holding open competitive examinations for all positions."
2. It is the intention of this section of the Charter that:
(a) Employees in the civil service as a result of test and certification under the 1919 Charter automatically become civil service employees under this Charter. As such they are subject all the requirements of civil service employees under this Charter and are entitled to all the rights of such employees.
(b) Non-civil service employees under the 1919 Charter or civil service employees thereunder not employed after a civil service test and certification automatically retain their employment status for a period of one year. To remain thereafter in the employ of the City as civil service employees they must take and pass a qualifying examination. The examination required is not intended to be a competitive test nor need it be a written one. Its sole purpose is to establish that a former non-civil service employee or employee not appointed pursuant to test and certification meets certain minimum qualifications necessary to perform the duties of the position which he holds. Experience and a previous record of satisfactory performance are factors to be considered in the test rating. It is not the intention of this section to take off the City payroll employees who have faithfully and creditably performed their duties of employment prior to the effective date of this Charter merely because they were not civil service employees pursuant to test and certification under the 1919 Charter. The presumption should be that such employees are qualified to continue their employment but as civil service employees. To protect the interest in the respects noted of such employees, it is required that the Civil Service Commission itself in this instance shall approve the qualifying test prescribed by the Personnel Director.
3. The comments above are equally applicable to County employees who may become City employees by virtue of City-County consolidation.