PERSONNEL REFORM: WHY OR WHY NOT?

posted by Michael Chihak

The yin and the yang of Arizona's state personnel system:

-- Paid leaves of absence for employees appealing disciplinary procedures cost Arizona taxpayers $1.6 million in a two-year period, according to the Goldwater Institute. That's 88,000 paid hours that workers were off the job, the institute said.

-- Existing state law and procedures already cover most of the issues that would be addressed in the new legislation, including speeded-up hiring procedures, merit pay and quick discipline, according to Sheri Van Horsen, president of state employee union Local 3111.

These perspectives come in the midst of the debate over Gov. Jan Brewer's efforts to reform the state personnel system. A bill, HB2571, has passed one committee in the House and will go before the Committee of the Whole soon.

Meantime, small-government advocates are lining up on one side and union and employee association representatives on the other.

We will talk with several of them on Friday's Arizona Week, including:

-- Mark Flatten and Nick Dranias of the Goldwater Institute. Flatten wrote lengthy investigative report on governmental personnel issues in December 2010. Dranias, a lawyer, has made the case for the legislation to change the system.

-- Sheri Van Horsen, president of Arizona Local 3111 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. She has published a "myths and relaities" document that argues against personnel reform.

-- Jimmy Chavez, president of the Arizona Highway Patrol Association, which represents hundreds of peace officers and civilian workers in the Arizona Department of Public Safety. He says any changes in the personnel system need to exempt law-enforcement personnel because the current system works for them.

Those interviews will air Friday, 8:30 p.m. MST on PBS-HD6, Arizona Week.