Civil Service, HR present training rollouts and propose public dashboard to track critical vacancies

Civil Service and the CAO’s human resources team briefed the council on staffing, training and recruitment at the Oct. 14 budget hearings, highlighting a new learning management system and a proposed public dashboard to show critical vacancies.

Civil Service Director Amy Trepani said the department rolled out a learning management system that links to the city’s performance evaluation workflow and allows employees to self‑enroll in online and instructor‑led courses. She said the system replaces a paper‑based application process and an Access database and provides a standard catalog of trainings for employees.

Trepani said a classification and compensation study completed earlier remains on hold because of the budget deficit; the office will reengage the study when the city’s fiscal position allows. She said the commission approved multiple rule changes in 2025 to streamline processes and that civil service has recommended roughly 27 hiring‑rate adjustments for hard‑to‑fill positions.

Trepani told the council she will work with IT to produce an online dashboard that will display — by position — the number of authorized vacancies, the number of eligible applicants on a list and hires made year to date. The dashboard is intended to make transparent where bottlenecks exist between eligible lists and actual hires and to inform decisions about requisitions, minimum qualifications and hiring rates.

Human resources staff said the city’s recruitment team participated in 44 recruiting events in 2025, generated nearly 1,914 new leads and added 102 new applicants to the employment register despite a June 2025 hiring freeze that permits exceptions for revenue‑generating roles and critical public safety positions.

Civil Service and HR leaders warned that continued budget constraints and unfilled HR positions could slow hiring and onboarding, reduce training capacity and increase legal and compliance risks.