SECOND REPORT OF THE CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION. STATE OF NEW YORK, To his Excellency, the Governor of the State of New York: The number of persons subject to Civil Service regulations to be made or approved by this Commission is as follows: The duties of the Commission have largely expanded by the discovery, from time to time, that numerous and important public employees, who were at first believed to be in municipal or other local service, have been judicially declared to be in the State service. These adjudications the Commission has deemed controlling for Civil Service purposes, and has consequently taken the necessary action to apply the State Rules to all such positions. Those brought under the State Rules by the decisions referred to, are the persons employed by Excise Boards; the officers and employees of the various courts, both of general and local jurisdiction, [Assem. Doc. No. 42.] 2 in cities; and the physicians required to be appointed under the general health laws of the State, designated as "Health officers." Classification, methods of examination, and the selection of special Boards of Examiners, for these added positions became necessary, and have received appropriate action by the Commission. The Commission has been conscious at all times that the change introduced by Civil Service methods must necessarily be gradual, and cannot with propriety progress faster than the changes can be supported by intelligent public sentiment. An instantaneous change from the license of the patronage system to the highest conceptions of Civil Service methods, was not always practicable. The transition period demands wise and prudent action, and a discreet recognition of the fact, that the opinions and prejudices that have grown up under a different system of long standing, cannot at once be supplanted, but will yield as the evidence of better modes accumulates. With this conviction the Commission has sedulously aimed to secure the co-operation of public officers, and of persons holding positions of authority and influence. It has conferred with and invited expressions from the heads of departments in the State government; the officials in charge of the asylums, reformatories, and prisons of the State; the mayors and other officials of cities; the members of the judiciary; the various associations of the bar; the medical profession and civil engineers; the State Board of Health, and other boards; the principals of normal schools; the presidents of colleges, and numerous others, whose experience and standing rendered their views desirable. The Commission has received valuable suggestions and assistance from these various sources, and in the main has met a fair degree of co-operation on the part of public officials, and acquired important and useful information. In April the Commission, in view of decisions by which the employees connected with the courts of the City of New York have been adjudged to be in the service of the State, and not of the Municipality, asked from the Judges information and advice; and the full and valuable responses of Chief Judge Daly of the Common Pleas, and of Chief Judge Sedgwick of the Superior Court, will be found in the Appendix. Judge Daly remarked, in concluding his letter: "I beg leave to say that the Commission may always feel assured, to use your own language, of the co-operation and moral support of the judges of our Court;" and Judge Sedgwick said, in closing: "You will have perceived that what legal questions may be involved in the matter that may have been referred to, there is none that has a practical bearing, or which, as we think, should now delay you in proceeding under the act of 1883, according to your own opinions as to the application of the provisions of the act." The Commission next asked the Bar Association of the city, through its President, James C. Carter, Esq., to appoint a com mittee of conference, with a view to the adoption of a scheme of classification and examinations, with the assistance and approval of that body. The Bar Association, after the summer recess, acted upon this request, and appointed as their committee of conference, Cephas Brainard, Esq., chairman; Elial F. Hall, Esq., Charles W. Dayton, Esq., and a conference was held in the City of New York, attended by this committee of the Bar Association and the Board of Examiners appointed for the Court officials headed by the Hon. Wm. H. Arnoux, two members of the Board of examiners for the Court officials of Brooklyn, two of the State Commissioners and the chief examiner; and a basis of action was agreed upon, and the work of preparation is now in progress. CIVIL SERVICE EXAMINERS. The fee allowed by the Act to examiners not in the service of the State, is five dollars per day, a sum which is generally quite inadequate to require those whose services it is important to secure, gentlemen of high character and accomplishments, whose impartiality is free from the slightest suspicion. The conferring of certificates of eligibility to office is a judicial act, and the position of examiner is one of great dignity and importance. Happily the magnitude and importance of the competitive examinations have been properly understood by those whose assistance as examiners has been asked, and that assistance has been promptly rendered in nearly every case without compensation, but solely from motives of patriotism and honor which are entitled to acknowledgment. The Boards of Examiners in the State and Municipal Service are as follows: The scientific and medical gentlemen who assisted in the examination for the post of assistant physicians in the State Hospital at Poughkeepsie, were as follows: Dr. Stephen Smith, Chairman. Prof. Henry Drisler, Examiner in General Education. Dr. James S. Leaning and Dr. Darwin E. Hudson, Examiners in General Medicine. Dr. Allan McL. Hamilton, Examiner in the Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology of the Nervous System. Dr. Theodore H. Kellogg, Examiner in Insanity. Dr. A. Nelson Bell, Examiner in Preventive Medicine. Dr. Lewis Balch, Examiner in Surgery. Dr. A. E. Macdonald, Examiner in Administrative Qualities. THE AMENDED LAW FOR CITIES, Under the original "Act to regulate and improve the Civil Service of the State," only seven cities-those containing fifty thousand inhabitants and upwards-were subject to its provisions; and in those cities very limited authority was given to mayors, and the exercise of that authority was entirely optional. Authority similar to that of mayors was, however, given to various heads of departments. The imperfection and incongruity of this system were sufficiently obvious, and attention was called to the subject in the last report of the Commission. The Legislature wisely concluded to remedy these defects, and to make the system thorough and harmonious, by rendering it mandatory in cities and by vesting in the mayors sole authority to establish regulations for every department of municipal government, except only the educational, which the Commission had recommended should be excepted, on account of its peculiar character and its quasi status as part of the educational system of the State. The extension of Civil Service methods to all the cities of the State was not favored by the Commission, for the reason that in the smaller cities the offices to be affected were too few in number, and too unimportant to present any urgent necessity for this reform in its incipient stages; but the Commission refrained from making any suggestion to the Legislature on the subject. After the law was enacted the Commission promptly proceeded to give effect to its provisions, but endeavored to do so in a liberal and conciliatory spirit, in order to have the benefit of the friendly co-operation of municipal authorities. The provision of the amendatory acts requiring the approval of municipal regulations by the State Commission, while judicious in itself, largely increased the duties and responsibilities of the Com mission. It soon became apparent that to secure uniformity in municipal regulations and harmony with the rules of the State Service, and in some instances to have any action taken, it was necessary for the Commission to take the initiative by preparing regulations to be submitted to the mayors for their adoption. This was accordingly done, and the various mayors with reasonable promptitude and public spirit have adopted the general scheme of regulations recommended by the Commission, and after formal approval by the Commission, have promulgated them in their respective cities. The only cities that have failed to comply with the statute are: Hudson, Watertown, Oswego, Rome, Elmira, Schenectady, Newburg, and Lockport. (Buffalo Regulations nearly ready.) The municipal regulations established by the separate cities, and which in obedience to the acts are given in the Appendix, are in entire harmony with the State rules in all essential inatters. The classifications, the schedules, the rules for entrance to the service, and for examinations and promotions, are in substance identical with the State Rules so far as the nature of the service permits. The Police and Fire Departments of cities have no equivalents in the State Service, and the regulations for those departments have been prepared, upon careful consideration, by gentlemen in the cities of New York and Brooklyn who have brought to the work great intelligence, earnestness, and good judgment. The able report of a special committee of the Civil Service Reform Associ ation of New York, relative to the Police and Fire Departments, |