Melton v. Personnel Commission

DOUGLAS, J., concurring Specially. Although I totally disagree with the commission’s refusal to approve the appointment of the best qualified person to an important supervisory position at the Laconia State School, our prior tests for review make correction of this ruling by us a difficult task. Nevertheless, the ruling is not consonant with good public personnel merit system management. The commission ruled that a qualified permanent employee must receive the promotion, regardless of the superior qualifications of an applicant who is a probationary employee. In the commission’s decision in the Wayne Brock Promotional Appeal (January 4, 1978), the *281 commission said that “just meeting the minimum qualifications for a position should not be the sole criteria in the hiring process.” The commission concluded that it “firmly supports the policy of placing the best qualified persons into state positions.” (Emphasis added.) Although the facts in Brock are distinguishable from those in this case, the policy is not. The Brock policy of placing the best qualified persons correctly defines the commission’s Rule II, which provides that vacancies “shall be filled whenever possible and reasonable by promotion of a qualified permanent employee from within the department or agency.” The interviewing doctor said that while it would have been possible to promote one of the other sixteen applicants, it would not have been reasonable to ignore the best candidate. Only this analysis of “possible and reasonable” guarantees citizens and taxpayers the “increase of economy and efficiency” in State service mentioned in the commission’s General Statement of Policy Section I, B. Over fifty years ago, a past president of the United States Civil Service Commission stated that the “aim of the Civil Service Commission is not merely to secure good employees for the Government; it endeavors to procure the best available.” W. ÜEMING, APPLICATION OF the Merit System in the United States Civil Service 4 (1928). Promotion policies for public employees are often misunderstood. One commentator notes that [f]rom the nature of the generalizations on the subject some personnel and employee groups would appear to assume that all employees are to be guaranteed promotions to new responsibilities from time to time; others seem to jump to the conclusion that outside recruitment is undesirable except for the lowest rung in the civil service structure. New see a promotion program as merely part of a general staffing policy, a policy for filling positions with the ablest available talent, of which outside recruitment is another integral part at many levels in the structure. O. G. Stahl, Public Personnel Administration 109 (5th ed. 1962). An exclusive “promote from within” policy ignores the “proper balance between inside and outside recruitment [that] lie[s] at the very heart of good personnel administration.” Id. To conclude otherwise renders the phrase “whenever possible and reasonable” meaningless. The commission’s ruling converts the personnel system into a protective guild rather than a merit system. *282 The experiences with inbreeding do not contradict the importance of selection by promotion. Instead, they demonstrate the need for careful attention to ways and means and for avoidance of the oversimplified concept of promotion which results in little more than the progressive advancement of mediocrity. From our observation, [some] promotion-from-within systems . . . have failed to maintain live- ' wire organizations. . . . Id. at 110. The commission’s promotion from within policy ignores the warning that [i]n spite of the values of promotion opportunity as a morale builder, we must not lose sight of the necessity for looking outside the service to fill many types of positions at the same time that candidates inside are being considered. This provides an opportunity to check on the range and type of experience of candidates from various sources. It is frequently essential if we are to fill a position with the “best available person.” Id. at 112. Professor Torpey agrees with Stahl that, if all other considerations are equal, promotion from within is an effective policy: A promotion program has as its nucleus a policy of promotion from within the organization, as long as there are qualified employees. This policy does not comprehend absolute selection from within/or all higher grade vacancies for the reason that at least a comparatively small number of selections from the outside for these vacancies is desirable in order to bring new ideas into the organization. W. Torpey, Public Personnel Management 125 (1953) (emphasis added). It is unwise to promote an inferior candidate from within when a superior candidate from the outside is the best person available. The commission’s ruling to the contrary appears to take the word “merit” out of the merit system. The commission’s ruling might be appropriate for the lower levels of the personnel system but is certainly inappropriate for supervisory positions. The commission is, of course, free to return to the Brock analysis in the future, because nothing in the majority decision of this court bars it from doing so.