City Council approves civil service rule revision; Dallas board hears updates on promotions, ALJs and hearing schedule

The Dallas Civil Service Board received a briefing Aug. 12 that City Council has approved a final revision to the city’s civil service rules, creating an additional pathway intended to facilitate hiring for public-safety positions.

Gary Davis, presenting the update to the board, said the city secretary’s office returned a stamped version of the revision and civil service staff are compiling new rulebooks for board members. “We finally got our final rule revision through city council,” Davis said, and staff will distribute printed and electronic copies to board members.

Davis said the revision includes an “additional pathway” the department has named for access into the Dallas Police Department and indicated the department will continue exploring similar pathways for other career series facing recruitment challenges. He told the board staff will return with further pathway proposals as they are developed.

Staff also briefed the board on department workload, upcoming promotional testing and logistics challenges. Highlights included:

- Fire prevention promotions: the recent cycle supported 69 candidates. - Battalion chief promotion: a promotional examination was announced for Nov. 6 and is expected to support more than 135 candidates. - Police promotions: lieutenant and sergeant promotion exams were announced and are expected to support more than 200 officers in each rank within the next 60 days. - Recruitment staff: three new civil service recruitment analysts were added, and Manny Clark joined as a test and recruitment validation specialist.

Davis reported constraints on event and testing space because of renovations and convention-center activity, and said staff are scouting venues to manage costs and scheduling. He also noted the city is in budget-workshop season as the fiscal year ends Sept. 30 and the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1.

On administrative-appeals matters, Davis said the Judicial Nominating Committee selected five finalists for administrative law judge contracts and the city is preparing council resolutions to approve two‑year contracts for those appointees; staff expect the contracts to be finalized and executed in September and for the new administrative law judges to be incorporated into the rotation. Davis said the change expands access to administrative law judges as a grievance option and that council and charter actions are aligning with audit recommendations to tier employee cost shares for administrative hearings based on annual salary.

The board’s trial-board and hearing schedule is largely current, staff said. A special-called meeting is scheduled for Sept. 9 to hear a Dallas Police Department grievance; another grievance hearing is scheduled for Oct. 7. Davis said most trial boards are up to date and staff continue to confirm chair assignments.

Chairman Terrence Welch asked about the five ALJ finalists and Davis confirmed all five are moving forward for approval and anticipated they will be slotted to ensure rotation and diversity among case hearings.

No formal motions were taken on the rule revision during the board meeting; the revision had already advanced through City Council. The board received the updates and staff said they will return with additional pathway proposals and a year-over-year recruitment and promotions analysis in the fall.