The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-02-19
NEW CIVIL SERVICE RULES
COMPLETED YESTERDAY AFTER
 NOON BY THE COMPASSION.


 Rules in Operation In New York and othei Cities Have Been Adopted-The Service Classified-Rigid Physical Examinations for Candidates for Policemen and Fire men-Other Requirements.
 The rules of the New Haven civil service board on which the board has been working some time have at last been completed and yesterday after noon were given to the press. These rules as now compiled are most com plete and provide for the conduct of the civil service examinations of appli- cants for positions in various depart ments of the city government on more systematic and thorough plan than has ever before been attempted in New Haven, although the essential features of the new rules have been in use for some time in New York and other cities and have been found to operate with great success.
 Much of the credit for the formula tion and compilation of the rules is due to the president of the commission, who has taken great interest in the work and at his own expense has vis- tied other cities to investigate the op- eration of certain civil service rules, and in that way has obtained many valuable hints which have been incor- porated into the rules just issued. A transfer case for filing names and re- ports of examinations of the candidates who appear before the commission has been placed in room 15 city hall, and Professor Farnam has devised a plan for keeping in drawers, in alphabetical order, somewhat in the same way that book cards are kept in the public h- brary cards with the names and brief description and the date of his entering the service of each employe of the city government. The advantage of this will be that the controller, If he desires to see at any time whether or not a man is on the city pay rolls can do so by simply consulting these cards. Professor Farnam, in speaking yester- day afternoon of the New Haven civil service commission and it's work, said: New Haven has had a civil service board for two years under the law of 1895, but it's powers were very limited and it consisted of the mayor and the chiefs of the fire and police depart ments, ex-of1cio. The new board un- der the new charter is larger It con- tains, besides the two superintendents, three citizen members. Its powers are also much more extended, as it can Iyo rH fo al of tbn officials employed by the city, except ing those elected, and certain heads of departments enumerated in the char ter None of these numerous officials is affected until the board has made rules and it is the policy of the board to proceed cautiously and net to try to cover at once the whole of the field It is believed that in this way it is more likely to accomplish the purpose of every civil service commissioner, which is to aid the different depart ments of the government in increasing the efficiency of their staff. In many cases it must therefore feel it's way and learn the needs of the different depart ments before making rules.
 We have learned good deal from careful study of the experience of oth- CT cities, especially Boston and New York, but we cannot copy their meth ods directly They have much larger civil service to deal with and much more money to expend. We have felt that for a city of the size of New Ha- ven the rules and the methods should be as simple as possible and the amount appropriated for the current year would make it utterly impossible to provide for many features which larger cities can afford The city SUD- plies the commission with stationery and office furniture, but besides this has appropriated only s360 for the sec retary's salary. A great deal of the work therefore, which is done else- where by special examiners, must be done by the board itself in New Ha- ven. As a consequence of our policy of feeling our way and keeping in touch with the different departments the first problem that the board will have to deal with is one which proba- bly, none of us contemplated when we took office. I refer to the examination of special constables. These were for merly appointed by the common coun- cil. It is not customary elsewhere to put them under civil service rules, but the new charter entrusts their appoint ment to the police commission and puts them among the persons who are sub ject to such rules as we may make When we found that the police com missioners desired to have us include the special constables we at once framed such rules as we thought ap- propriate, not of course requiring any formal examination such as is estab- lished for regular members of the po- lice department, but simply requiring a formal application with certain gen. eral facts regarding the applicant age, occupation, etc., and providing that if special constable is already filling some position of trust or respon- sibility in previate employment cer- tificate from his present employer vii be sufficient evidence of his fitness that when man does not fill such g position he must bring vouchers from three reputable citizens.
 This will be the first part of tho rules to be put into operation and ii they prove to be satisfactory we may perhaps find ourselves quite unexpect edly the pioneers in this department We have learned from Massachusett: that although special cOnStableS hay,