LEWISTON – Voters will get to decide the fate of Lewiston’s Personnel Board in November.
Councilors agreed to put the board, a vestige of Lewiston’s more political past on the ballot.
“City jobs sometimes went to people, not based on whether they were good employees or not, but based on how much they supported whoever was the mayor,” City Administrator Jim Bennett said.
The Personnel Board was created to keep politics out of hiring and make sure police and fire crews met certain standards. The board, made up of three people, meets each spring to test applicants for police and fire department jobs.
But Bennett said state law has its own tough standards for police officers. The personnel board is an unnecessary step that costs the city money.
“We allocate $8,000 per year for that,” Bennett said. “It may not seem like a lot, but it adds up.”
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.
The Personnel Board is part of the City Charter, and the city council can not eliminate it. The city must put any charter change before the voters for approval.
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