ST. LOUIS — Late last year, as the Civil Service Commission was preparing a rule change giving the mayor power to appoint a temporary leader for the city’s powerful Personnel Department, the commission’s chair suggested regulations requiring the interim director come from within the department had been put in place just a few months prior.
“I don’t know when that rule changed, but what I did find out that a lot of the changes in the rule took place in June 2021 as opposed to having already been there,â€Â Civil Service Commission Chair Bettye Battle-Turner said at a Dec. 20 meeting to discuss granting the mayor authority to pick the Personnel Department leader.
But minutes and recordings of Civil Service Commission meetings in June 2021 and subsequent months, recently obtained under a public records request submitted at the time, show no indication that the rule was changed. The rules say the last time interim director regulations were amended was 2019.
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Reached Wednesday, Battle-Turner declined to comment.Ìý
During the June 2021 meeting, for which Battle-Turner was present, there was no discussion of a rule change. In November, there was a discussion of the rule change, and the secretary for the commission, Kathleen Spencer, said then that the rule was last amended in September 2019.
Commissioner Steven Barney, who was first appointed to the three-person commission more than a decade ago and recently was reappointed by Jones, has said the rule requiring an interim director to come from within the department has been that way as long as he has been on the commission.
Battle-Turner’s suggestion that the rules had already been recently tinkered with came at a critical time for the department. Mayor Tishaura O. Jones had a rare opportunity to install the personnel director following the sudden resignation in November of director Richard Frank, who had led the department since 2004.Ìý
The personnel director leads hiring, promotions and union negotiations for the city’s nearly 5,000-person workforce. The department has faced criticism as the city struggles to hire workers amid a nationwide labor crunch that has hit city services such as alley recycling pickups because of a trash truck driver shortage.ÌýIn addition, the department was also leading the politically sensitive search for a new police chief that Jones has said should “start over.â€Â The city has since hired a search firm to find police chief candidates.Ìý
The department maintains an unusual degree of autonomy. Past mayoral administrations have sometimes struggled to enlist the Personnel Department’s largely insulated leadership in carrying out their agendas. The personnel director cannot be replaced by the mayor absent formal charges of malfeasance. Frank was only the fourth person to hold the job since 1942 — when the position was created in the hopes of protecting the city workforce from patronage-driven machine politics.
After Frank’s sudden departure, Bryan Boeckelmann served as acting director of personnel, according to Nov. 30 meeting minutes. A few days later, the Civil Service Commission briefly appointed Sylvia Donaldson, a longtime Personnel Department employee, to the post. Meanwhile, there were allegations that several longtime employees had been locked out of their offices amid an investigation into the department.Ìý
Even before Donaldson’s appointment though, the commission began discussing a rule change governing how an interim director was appointed.
By February, the commission amended the rule to allow the mayor to appoint an interim director. Jones quickly filled the position with John Moten, a former Laclede Gas executive. Several city worker unions opposed the move, and the union representing city firefighters has sued to block the rule change. That case is pending.Ìý
But the suggestion that the rules governing the appointment of an interim director had been changed last year may not have mattered. Commissioners cited other reasons for making the change. They said they were ill-equipped to know the best Personnel Department employee for the job because they mostly interacted with Frank, the former director.
And Barney argued that a completely insulated department can make it difficult for an elected mayor to get traction on his or her agenda, something Barney said he’s watched during the past three mayoral administrations.Ìý
Moten has said he would serve just six months while a search for a permanent director finishes. The Civil Service Commission will send three candidates chosen after competitive testing to the mayor, who makes the appointment.
Barney said late last month the “process is well underwayâ€Â and at least three candidates have been interviewed for the job, which is posted online.
