Judge orders Youngstown to pad police payroll

The Youngstown Police Department is going to have two new captains, whether it needs them or not. And it doesn't.
City council has already said the department has enough top brass. But, says a court, council didn't say so soon enough. And because it didn't, the city is going to have to promote two persons to captaincies. Even worse, the city will have to pay the new captains their higher salaries retroactive to more than a year ago.
What's needed: The city of Youngstown needs more patrolmen on the street, making their presence known in the community in the ways that do the most good. It does not need more police brass riding desks and collecting higher salaries.
The court has elevated a presumed "right" of two as-yet-undetermined individuals to promotions over the obvious best interests of the city, its residents and its taxpayers.
Judge Mary Cacioppo, assigned to the Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, said the city erred when it did not arrange a new eligibility test on Jan. 6, 2000, the day that the city promoted the last three persons on a civil service eligibility list to captain.
The city didn't really think it needed a new eligibility list because it knew it didn't need any more captains. And, indeed, Jan. 7, 2000, council passed an ordinance abolishing two positions in the captain's rank to reflect the eight that were then filled. It further voted to abolish two more captaincies by attrition, which would eventually bring the strength to six. And council voted again in May to amend the city's payroll ordinance to reflect those changes.
Not quick enough, said the judge, who ruled in a suit brought by would-be captains, that the city was bound by law to give a test for positions it was abolishing in good faith. Further, she ordered that two new captains will be named from that eligibility list and they will receive back pay to Jan. 6, 2000.
The flaw: While it may honor the letter of the law, the ruling violates the spirit of civil service, which was established to replace cronyism and nepotism in government with competitive exams.
In this case, no cronies would benefit from the city's failure to give an exam to fill positions that are no longer necessary. The only persons who would benefit would be residents and taxpayers.
The judge's ruling has the effect of benefiting two lower ranking officers, who will eventually receive back pay for work they never did and future pay raises and retirement benefits for doing work the city does not require.
The court misses a central point, one that dare not be ignored in this age of growing taxpayer distrust of government. The point is this: Civil service was created to meet the needs of the taxpayers. Taxpayers were not put on this earth for the purpose of making life more comfortable for civil servants.
If public employees -- from rookie police officers to judges with decades of experience -- would keep that in mind, almost everyone would be happier.