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Promotion Test Batteries non-starters
By SHERRY HALBROOK
Less than three months into the Spitzer administration, the state Department of
Civil Service has pulled the plug on the controversial Promotion Test Batteries.
Maybe permanently, or maybe not.
The PTBs are meant to be general tests of decision making, logical thinking,
judgement and other basic managerial or supervisory skills.
PTB scores have been a factor in determining promotion exam scores, and those
scores determine rankings on lists of eligible candidates for filling positions.
In March, DCS suspended giving the PTBs and the use of banked PTB scores in
promotion exams that had not yet been announced and held.
Exams that would have used the PTBs and that already had been announced, but not
given, are postponed until the fall. Other exams that were scheduled, but not
announced, also may be delayed.
However, the state will continue to use all existing civil service lists of
eligible candidates for state jobs even if PTB scores were used in establishing
them.
Furthermore, DCS has identified a dozen job titles for which it will use PTB
scores to establish new eligible lists. The exams for these titles were
previously announced and given.
You won’t need an active PTB score to take promotion exams.
DCS doesn’t know yet if it will ever want to jump-start the PTBs.
Meanwhile, DCS says it will use a variety of tools to evaluate candidates for
promotion, such as written and oral tests and evaluations of training and
experience as components of future promotion exams.
“I think this is the best thing DCS and the Spitzer administration could have
done,” said PEF Vice President Pat Baker. “We have been trying for years to get
the state to take another look at the PTBs, and that’s what they’re going to
do.”
In 2000, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found probable
cause that the PTBs were discriminatory and had a disparate effect on blacks and
Hispanics. The commission criticized the use of the PTBs for being applied to “a
broad range of supervisory and managerial positions” when it “is not tailored to
any of them.”
The commission said if a test has a disparate effect on some people, it should
at least be job-related and consistent with business necessity, but the PTBs are
not.
“This is about everybody who works for the state of New York,” Baker said. “If
the test doesn’t fairly identify the best qualified people, it doesn’t serve
anyone well.”
Baker said she hopes DCS will not rely more now on oral exams.
“Civil Service should be evaluating how well trained and experienced you are for
a job, how well you understand it and how well you could do it,” she said. “I
don’t see how oral exams do that.”
If you encounter problems during the transition, notify your Executive Board
member or field rep.
The PTB issue will be the subject of the next Point-Counterpoint in The
Communicator.
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