As those of you who followed HRD’s attempt to “band” scores from the October 2008 police promotional exam know, we were able to defeat that attempt on procedural grounds by arguing that such a substantive change must be the subject of rulemaking. Well, HRD has regrouped, and yesterday Chief Human Resources Officer Paul “Ebenezer” Dietl sent out notice that he intended to change the Personnel Administrator Rules to allow banding and set a hearing on the changes for December 14 at 2:00 p.m. at 100 Ashburton Place. You can read the notice of hearing and the proposed rules here, http://www.mass.gov/Eoaf/docs/hrd/cs/information/par_amendments_2009.pdf .
Obviously, the fact that HRD is actually following its own rules by scheduling a hearing does not lessen the potential impact of banding – which, without a doubt, will undermine merit-based hiring by allowing appointing authorities vastly more discretion that is currently allowed. We’ll be studying the proposed rules and getting ready for the 14th. We’ll see you there!