Court Opinion

ID: 9535052
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:45:01.945712+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:09.711795
License: Public Domain

McGINLEY, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that neither the provisions of the General Civil Service Law, or the Policemen’s Civil Service Act, which require ranking of eligible police officer candidates through competitive testing, apply to Pittsburgh. Rather, I agree with the trial court that the purpose of Section 301 of the Home Rule Charter Law, which allows a home rule municipality to exercise any powers and perform any functions not denied by the General Assembly, was not to restrict the General Assembly’s ability to limit, through civil service legislation, the manner in which the City hires its employees. See Opinion of the Court of Common Pleas, November 24, 1992, at 13-14.
Furthermore, in Fire Fighters, Local Union, No. 1 v. Civil Service Commission of City of Pittsburgh, 118 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 498, 545 A.2d 487 (1988), affirmed 524 Pa. 278, 571 A.2d 377 (1990), this Court addressed a similar issue of whether the City of Pittsburgh, as a home-rule city, may lawfully avoid applying a civil service statute’s competitive selection provisions to two newly-created “assistant” positions directly under the fire chief. This Court noted that Section 302(b)(v) of the Home Rule Charter Law limits the city’s personnel management as follows:
*96(b) No municipality shall ... (v) enact any provision inconsistent with any statute heretofore enacted by the General Assembly affecting the rights, benefits, or working conditions of any employee of a political subdivision of the Commonwealth.
53 P.S. § l-302(b)(v).
Because the civil service statute qualified as a prior statute affecting the rights of all employees other than the fire chief and chief clerk, we held that the City’s proposed ordinance, which was inconsistent with the civil service statute, was therefore invalid.
I believe that Fire Fighters is controlling in the present controversy and I would hold that, pursuant to Section 302(b)(v) of the Home Rule Charter, Ordinance No. 26 is invalid as being inconsistent with the competitive selection provisions of the General Civil Service Law and the Policemen’s Civil Service Act.1
I would affirm the trial court.

. In Fire Fighters we also noted that the limitation in Section 302(b)(v) applies to new positions when the scope of the civil service statute is bureau-wide, as it is in the present case. 118 Pa.Commonwealth Ct. at 505, 545 A.2d at 490.