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Janet Howard, president and CEO of the Bureau of Governmental Research, said the city’s “calcified and byzantine” civil service system has hampered the effort further.

The Bureau of Governmental Research, which supports ending the bump rule, has said the “organizational unit” language is too broad, and that’s a valid concern that the city needs to address. But eliminating the bump rule makes sense. The policy can trigger chain reactions that force good employees out while requiring the city to unnecessarily retrain workers.

New Orleans Deputy Mayor Andy Kopplin made an appearance in the D.H. Holmes Ballroom at the Chateau Bourbon Hotel on Monday, Sept. 12, to brief members of the Bureau of Governmental Research (BGR) of the Landrieu Administration’s progress in reforming city government.

Janet Howard, president of the Bureau of Governmental Research, says the problems in city government are so widespread that prioritizing will be critical in attacking the issues. “You can’t expect a ship like New Orleans to turn around overnight,” said Howard.

Fielkow voted for Hagmann at a committee meeting last week, but he said he had changed his mind because of concerns raised by Bureau of Governmental Research President Janet Howard about a conflict of interest, “real or perceived,” between Hagmann’s roles as a Civil Service Department employee and a member of the commission that oversees the department’s work and chooses its director.

A council committee last week recommended that the full body confirm the candidate who led a recent vote by city workers, but the Bureau of Governmental Research on Tuesday urged the council not to approve that candidate, Robert Hagmann, because he works in the Civil Service Department.

…the nonpartisan Bureau of Governmental Research (BGR) issued a report calling for a systematic overhaul of civil service. BGR, which can hardly be accused of supporting a spoils system, pointed out that the local civil service system, which functions as a central (and very powerful) human resources office for all city departments, is “archaic, overly centralized and inefficient.” Many who know the ins and outs of City Hall say that’s being kind.

Wildes said he is aware of several reports, including one by the watchdog Bureau of Governmental Research, that call for a major overhaul of civil service policies. “My (concern) is not about any particular rule, but it’s more about how the whole damned thing is functioning and how do we improve it,” he said.

City government should be no different, but the problem New Orleans faces is that its system for evaluating civil service employees is nothing short of a joke. According to the Bureau of Governmental Research, an evaluation of 4,315 city employees last year showed that just 31 were in need of improvement.

According to a letter written to the Civil Service Commission by Janet Howard, president of the Bureau of Governmental Research, of the 4,315 city employees evaluated in 2010, only 31 were found to need improvement.

But the argument falls apart in the face of how city employees are rated on performance. As Janet Howard of the Bureau of Governmental Research pointed out in a letter, only 31 of the city’s 4,315 employees were rated as needing improvement in 2010. Even more incredibly, only one employee in the entire municipal workforce was labeled unsatisfactory.

Still, the Bureau of Government Research said the bumping rule is problematic.

The nonprofit Bureau of Governmental Research in New Orleans this week said the practice can set of a chain-reaction of job changes that cause qualified workers to be replaced with less-qualified people from other departments. The BGR backs the idea of limiting bumping, although it has suggested some changes to the Landrieu administration’s proposed rule revisions.

The president of the Bureau of Governmental Research, a watchdog group that in 2004 published a report that found that “bumping can wreak havoc with the city’s work force,” sent a letter Tuesday to the commission stating its strong support for the administration’s proposal.

It’s no wonder that the Bureau of Governmental Research, which has long advocated for eliminating this policy, has called it “an incredibly messy process that wreaks havoc with the work force.” A consultant this year also cited the policy as a reason why City Hall is dysfunctional.

Elimination of the bumping rule has been urged for years by the watchdog Bureau of Governmental Research, which in a 2004 report called bumping “an incredibly messy process that wreaks havoc with the work force.”

“The idea of having flexibility in who you choose, in terms of being able to pick from more than one civil service rank, is something that we think is important,” said Janet Howard, president of watchdog group, the Bureau of Governmental Research.

Janet Howard, of the Bureau of Governmental Research, questioned the need for provisional appointments. Howard noted, however, that she supported the chief’s push to choose his top managers and give them more responsibility. The civil service system is broken and needs reform, Howard added.

The Bureau of Governmental Research (BGR), a New Orleans-based reform group, opposes Amendment 2 — but the Council for A Better Louisiana (CABL) supports it. The groups agree that GOHSEP employees are not typical state workers. They are on 24-hour call and must move about the state on a moment’s notice. The groups just disagree as to how to treat those employees with regard to civil service protection.

The Armstrong Ballroom at the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel was the site of the Bureau of Governmental Research 2009 Excellence in Government Awards, an annual event that rewards local government employees for outstanding performance and creative problem-solving and for their effective use of public resources.

Tim Whitmer, chief administrative officer for Jefferson Parish government since 1998, received a lifetime achievement award from the Bureau of Governmental Research last week.