By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – A plan to scrap the city’s Personnel Board could go before voters in November.

City councilors will discuss getting rid of the board Tuesday. The board, made up of three people, meets each spring to test applicants for police and fire department jobs.

“The problem we have is with the built-in rigidity,” said Denis Jean, city human relations director. The Personnel Board tests potential employees only once each year, but jobs open year long.

“If someone applies for a job in June but we’ve just finished testing, we take his name and say we’ll send him a card next year,” Jean said. “Where do you think that candidate is when we finally get around to contacting him? He’s working someplace else, and we’ve lost him.”

The city’s human resources department handles most of the other functions that used to fall to the board. The testing can be handled by the Maine Criminal Justice Academy for less than what it costs to keep the board running.

But the Personnel Board is part of the City Charter, and the City Council can not eliminate it. The council put the matter on the ballot this November and asks voters to eliminate it, however.

Lewiston’s Personnel Board was created more than 100 years ago to keep elected officials from appointing family and cronies to city jobs. The city had two civil service boards, one for police and another for fire, until they were combined in the 1980 charter revision.

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