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Civil Service Commission reacts to Perkins

STEUBENVILLE – The Civil Service Commission will invite 2nd Ward Councilman Rick Perkins to the November meeting to discuss testing for qualified candidates for future city jobs.

Commission Chairwoman Delores Wiggins said Tuesday the commission discussed recent comments made by Perkins at a council finance committee and want to clear the air with him.

“We don’t conduct tests just to have a list of candidates in case there is a future opening. We have to advertise for the tests, and that easily costs approximately $700. We then hire a Cleveland firm to conduct the testing so the total cost could add up to at least a couple of thousand dollars,” said Wiggins.

“We don’t necessarily want to conduct tests just to have a list in case there are future vacancies. If a city employee covered by the Civil Service Commission resigns, retires or leaves their job, the department head then sends us a letter requesting a test be conducted to fill the vacancy,” continued Wiggins.

“We want to sit down with Councilman Perkins to review our procedures,” she added.

Perkins said Tuesday night he will be, “very happy to meet with the Civil Service Commission.”

“I still believe we need tests for every department in the city. We will probably have several people retire next year ,and we need to be prepared for that,” Perkins said.

Last week, Perkins urged Mayor and Acting City Manger Domenick Mucci “to send a letter to the Civil Service Commission to start conducting testing for a qualified list of candidates for the police, fire and maintenance and repair departments. I am very afraid we are going to have a bunch of employees retire next year because of their situation with the Public Employees Retirement System.”

“I have two concerns tonight. We are continuing to be short staffed and next year you will have six to 10 people retire,” Perkins said at last week’s council meeting.

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