Union leaders will recommend changes to civil service as part of new task force

The city will form a task force filled with key leaders of municipal unions to study and recommend in-house and legislative changes to the city’s antiquated civil service system in order to speed up hiring for city jobs, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced on Monday. The Civil Service Modernization Advisory Committee will be chaired by Department of Citywide Administrative Services Commissioner Yume Kitasei and vice-chaired by Henry Garrido, the executive director of District Council 37, the largest union of municipal workers in the city.  

“It should be easy, fast and fair to find a good-paying job serving the city we call home,” Mayor Mamdani said in a statement announcing the new committee. “In this historic partnership with labor leaders, our administration is prioritizing the quick fixes and long-term solutions that speed up hiring in City government. From addressing the current time to hire to advancing new and innovative testing strategies, this committee is already at work coming up with ideas to build a civil service system truly worthy of our city.”  

The city’s civil service system, first established in 1883, has come under increasing criticism for outdated notices and training requirements, misleading job titles and, most of all, the slow process of hiring. Although DCAS has decreased the period between when an exam is administered and when the results are posted from 167 days to 101 over the last five fiscal years, according to the most recent Mayor’s Management Report, the period between the notice of examination to final hiring can still take over 15 months, in a best-case scenario. 

“The civil service system is a foundational component of municipal work, and after over a hundred years, it is time to update,” Kitasei, the DCAS commissioner, said in a statement. “Through our first-ever modernization committee, we’ll be working with partners from across the city to make the civil service system faster, more transparent, easier for workers to navigate and aligned with the 21st-century workforce and operational needs.” 

Since the pandemic when vacancies in the city’s civil service spiked, there have been several proposals made by city officials aimed at speeding up the hiring process including changing the process of how workers were hired off of eligible lists and exempting several-dozen civil service titles from the exam process. But those proposals were nipped in the bud after facing opposition from key municipal unions like DC 37. 

According to the City Comptroller’s office, the vacancy rate in the civil service has stabilized around 4 percent, down from a high of between 7 and 8.5 percent between late 2022 and late 2024. But stubbornly-high vacancy rates remain in certain key agencies like the Campaign Finance Board, Department of City Planning, Department of Homeless Services, DCAS and others.  

“The civil service system levels the playing field for entry into the public sector and ensures candidates have the baseline knowledge and skills to perform the job,” Garrido said in a statement. “A well-trained, well-qualified workforce is essential to providing efficient services for New Yorkers.”    

The presence of the city’s top municipal union leaders on the new committee suggests that the proposals put forward by the committee would have a better chance of becoming reality. Also on the committee is outgoing Communications Workers of America Local 1180 president and Municipal Labor Committee Chair Gloria Middleton, Correction Officer’s Benevolent Association president Benny Boscio, Service Employees International Union Local 246 president Joseph Colangelo and Anthony Wells, president of Social Service Employees Union Local 371. 

“As a veteran civil servant, working in the New York City Department of Correction for nearly thirty years, and as a proud union president for over six years, I’m very grateful for the opportunity to participate in the DCAS civil service task force,” Boscio said in a statement. “I look forward to collaborating with my union colleagues to examine ways to revamp and potentially enhance the civil service hiring process so the City of New York can continue to hire the best-qualified men and women to serve as essential civil servants.”   

It’s unclear what proposals exactly the committee will discuss, but they center on making the hiring process faster, more transparent, have clearer pathways and more tech-savvy. According to City Hall, around 80 percent of civil service positions are filled through exams administered by DCAS.