NORTH CAROLINA GENERAL ASSEMBLY

1971 SESSION

 

 

CHAPTER 1154

HOUSE BILL 1534

 

AN ACT TO COMBINE THE CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION FOR THE CITY OF RALEIGH AND TO REPEAL THE EXISTING CIVIL SERVICE ACT.

 

The General Assembly of North Carolina do enact:

 

Section 1.  That a new Civil Service Act for the City of Raleigh is adopted to read as follows:

Civil Service Commission. (a)  Creation. There is hereby created a Civil Service Commission for the City, which shall be composed of seven members, all of whom shall be qualified voters of the city, and shall take the oath prescribed by law. Three members shall be appointed by the City Council, three shall be elected by the employees of the City (one member to be elected by the members of the Fire Department, one member to be elected by the members of the Police Department, and one member to be elected by the remaining employees of the City), subject to this act, and one member shall be appointed by majority action of the other six members; no member of the Commission shall be a City employee or officer nor shall any member, as specified by the City Council, be related to any City officer or employee.

(b)       Merit Principle. All appointments and promotions of the City officers and employees shall be made solely on the basis of merit and fitness demonstrated by examination or other evidence of competence. However, any employee who contends that he was not promoted because of bias or for reasons not related to merit, fitness or availability of positions, shall have the right, after exhausting all administrative remedies, to appeal his cause to the Civil Service Commission.

(c)       Employees Subject to Act. This act shall apply to all officers and employees of the City except the following:

(1)       Officials elected by the people.

(2)       Employees or officials appointed by the City Council or appointed by the City Manager and approved by the city Council and their immediate secretaries.

(3)       Department heads, Division heads and their immediate secretaries.

(4)       Part-time or non-permanent officers or employees.

(5)       Employees serving their probationary periods before becoming permanent employees, not to exceed eight months.

(d)       Administration. The personnel system of the City shall be administered by an employee appointed and subject to the direction and supervision of the City Manager.

(e)       Personnel Rules. The officer administering the personnel system shall prepare personnel rules. The City Manager shall refer such proposed rules to the Civil Service Commission which shall report to the Manager its recommendations thereon. The rules including the recommendations of the Civil Service Commission and the recommendations of the City Manager shall be presented to the City Council. The council upon consideration of the recommendations shall then adopt the official personnel rules.

(f)        Appeal Board. The Civil Service Commission shall act as an appeal board to hear all appeals of employees regarding violation of City policy, suspensions, lay off, removal, promotions, forfeiture of pay or loss of time; but the Board shall have no jurisdiction to hear an appeal until all administrative remedies have been exhausted pursuant to the City's established grievance procedure.

The Civil Service Commission shall have the authority to affirm, modify or reverse, as it deems necessary, those actions over which it has jurisdiction.

(g)       Effect of Disciplinary Action. The procedure for administrative appeal in the event of suspension, lay-off, or removal from employment shall be established by personnel rules under the provisions of section (e) of this act. However, in the event of re-instatement the affected employee shall be paid all wages due from the time of suspension, lay-off or removal from employment and for all other purposes his period of employment shall be considered as uninterrupted.

(h)       Further Duties. The Civil Service Commission shall keep accurate records of its proceedings and shall have such other powers and duties as are necessary to implement the provisions of this act.

(i)        Discrimination Prohibited. No person in the service of the City or seeking admission thereto shall in any way be discriminated against or favored because of race, creed or color, or because of political or labor affiliations, or because of sex or marital status.

(j)        Participation in Elections. No appointed officer or employee of the City of Raleigh shall in any manner contribute to, participate or take part in any election, primary or any political contests, other than exercising his right to vote; provided, the foregoing prohibition shall apply only to those elections, primaries or political contests for offices of the City of Raleigh. Any person violating the provisions of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for up to 90 days or a fine of up to two hundred dollars ($200.00), or both, in the discretion of the Court and shall, upon conviction, be discharged from the service of the City of Raleigh.

Sec. 2.  Severability Clause.  If any section, subsection, sentence, clause or phrase of this act is for any reason held to be invalid such decision shall not affect the validity of the remaining portions thereof.  The General Assembly hereby declares that it would have passed this act and each section, subsection, sentence, clause or phrase thereof, irrespective of the fact that any one or more sections, subsections, sentences, clauses or phrases be declared invalid.

Sec. 3.  All laws and clauses of laws in conflict herewith are hereby repealed to the extent of such conflict and in particular Chapter 50 of the Private Laws of North Carolina 1935, Chapter 889 of the Session Laws of North Carolina 1953, Chapter 258 of the Session Laws of North Carolina 1959, and Chapter 331 of the Session Laws of North Carolina 1969, are expressly repealed.

Sec. 4.  This act shall become effective upon ratification.

In the General Assembly read three times and ratified, this the 21st day of July, 1971.