Basics of federal law regulating federal, state, municipal and certain other officers and employees engaging in partisan political activities

5 U.S.C. §7321, et seq, An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities and typically referred to as the Hatch Act, was enacted by Congress to express its policy that "employees should be encouraged to exercise fully, freely, and without fear of penalty or reprisal, and to the extent not expressly prohibited by law, their right to participate or to refrain from participating in the political processes of the Nation." Recently significant attention has been focused on provisions set out in law prohibiting partisan political activities by most officers and employees serving in executive branch of the federal government. 

On April 20, 2020, the Congressional Research Service (CRS), a nonpartisan shared staff to congressional committees and Members of Congress, posted a publication, The Hatch Act: A Primer, on the Internet at A Guide to the Hatch Act for Federal Employees - OSC.gov .

The Hatch Act, however, also applies to state officers and employees and officers and employees of political subdivisions of a state whose principal employment is in connection with an activity which is financed, in whole or in part, by the federal government. This prohibition, however, does not apply to individuals employed by educational or research institutions that a state supports and certain religious, philanthropic and cultural organizations. For example, the  members of a public school board of education and school officers and teachers employed by a public school are not within the ambit of the Act.

The New York State Bar Association posted an article by Sung Mo Kim, Esq. on the Internet addressing the applicability of the Hatch Act to New York State municipal officers and employees at https://nysba.org/app/uploads/2020/03/HatchActKimMunicipalFall06.pdf.

In addition, public employers in New York State may prohibit its officers and employees from campaigning for, and holding, elected office subject to its action satisfying the so-called Pickering Balancing Test. See https://publicpersonnellaw.blogspot.com/2018/09/public-employers-may-prohibit-its.html.

Removal of an individual's name from an eligible list or from his position by action of the State Department of Civil Service or by a municipal commission

§50.4 of the Civil Service Law provides for removing the name of an individual for appointment to a position in the competitive class from an eligible list or from the position if the individual was appointed from the eligible list. The New York State Department of Civil Service or a municipal civil service commission, as the case may be, on its own initiative or upon the request of an appointing authority, determine if an individual whose name appears on an eligible list, or who has been appointed from an eligible list, should be disqualified for appointment to the position.

For example, §50.4 provides that the State Department of Civil Service may refuse to examine an applicant, or after examination to certify an eligible for appointment to the position for a number of reasons, including, but not limited to:

1. The individual's lack any of the established requirements for admission to the examination or for appointment to the position; or

2. An individual who has been dismissed from a permanent appointment to position in the public service upon stated written charges of incompetency or misconduct; or

3. An individual who has intentionally made a false statement of any material fact in his application; or

4. An individual who has been dismissed from private employments because of habitually poor performance.

No person, however, may be disqualified pursuant to §50.4 unless he has been given a written statement of the reasons for such action and given an opportunity to offer an explanation and to submit facts in opposition to such disqualification.

Further, no person may be removed from his position based on findings made after an investigation of his qualifications and background more than three years after he has been appointed from the list because of finding of facts which if known prior to appointment, would have warranted his disqualification or upon a finding of "illegality, irregularity or fraud of a substantial nature" in his application, examination or appointment, except in the case of fraud.

For example, an employee removed from his position pursuant to §50.4 by the Personnel Officer and Director of Wayne County Civil Service Commission after a making a finding that the employee had “intentionally made false statements of material facts in his application or (had) attempted to practice (a) deception or fraud in his application” based on its finding that the employee had falsified his application with respect to his experience as a police officer and concealed facts related to his separation from a previous employment.

Although the employee sued, contending he could not be removed from his position without first being given an administrative due process hearing, the Appellate Division disagreed.*

The Appellate Division opined that "petitioner was accorded his full right to explain his conduct," and that he was not entitled to a hearing, citing Matter of Shraeder v Kern, 287 N.Y. 13. In the words of the Appellate Division, §50.4 “requires no more than that the person be given a written statement of the reasons therefore and afforded an opportunity to make explanation and to submit facts in opposition to such disqualification.”

* 78 A.D.2d 984, affirmed 55 NY2d 1019.

Trial practices and procedures of the New York City Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings during the COVID-19 pandemic

In United States v. Gigante, 166 F.3d 75, the United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, held that "even in the context of criminal proceedings, 'upon a finding of exceptional circumstances' a witness may be permitted to testify via two-way closed-circuit television when this furthers the interest of justice." The court then opined that the "COVID-19 pandemic presents such exceptional circumstances."

New York City Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings [OATH] Administrative Law Judges Astrid B. Gloade and Faye Lewis, respectively, denied applications filed by Respondents to hold in-person trials rather than their conducting trials through videoconferencing. Both ALJs explained that OATH has long recognized that testimony may be taken by videoconferencing when there is a compelling need to do so.

Both ALJs found that the COVID-19 pandemic establishes compelling circumstances for holding remote trials and explained that OATH's current practices and procedures provide for conducting all trials remotely except when an ALJ determines, upon motion, that there is a particularized, compelling need for an in-person trial that can be conducted in compliance with applicable health and safety guidelines.

These rulings by the ALJs reflected the Order OATH's Chief Administrative Law Judge Joni Kletter* issued "due to the emergency circumstances caused by the continuing COVID-19 outbreak in the City of New York" wherein Chief ALJ Kletter stated, in pertinent part, that "All trials before the OATH Trials Division will be conducted by Cisco Webex (or a similar system approved by the OATH Trials Division) which is widely available at no additional cost" under the circumstances.

Finding that Respondents, respectively, failed to demonstrate "a particularized, compelling need for in-person trials" the ALJs opined that videoconferencing of the OATH proceeding would permit parties to submit evidence electronically and conduct direct and cross-examination of witnesses, whose demeanor would be readily observable on the video platform by the ALJ conducting the trial or the hearing. Accordingly, the ALJs denied the applications submitted by Respondents to them, respectively, to conduct their hearings in the form of in-person trials.

* See OATH Chief Judge’s Order addressing adjudications by OATH’s Trials Division during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Municipal audits released by New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli

On August 25, 2020, State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli issued the local government audits listed below:

To access the full text of the audit click on the text highlighted in color.

Village of Broadalbin – Board Oversight of Cash Receipts and Disbursements (Fulton County)

The board did not adequately monitor cash receipts and disbursements. The clerk-treasurer collected, deposited and recorded cash receipts and prepared and signed checks without adequate review or approval by the mayor or board. The board did not receive or review bank statements or canceled check images to help minimize the risk of unauthorized transactions or other errors or irregularities occurring and remaining undetected.

Town of Corning – Financial Condition (Steuben County)

The board adopted budgets that underestimated revenues (until 2019), overestimated appropriations and failed to use most of the appropriated fund balance for operations. Auditors determined the board did not effectively manage the town’s financial condition, which resulted in the town-wide general fund having unassigned fund balance totaling $768,926 as of December 31, 2019, or 79 percent of actual expenditures. In addition, the board did not develop multiyear financial and capital plans or adopt a reasonable fund balance policy.

Town of Palermo – Timeliness of the Supervisor’s Records and Reports (Oswego County)

The town supervisor did not maintain up-to-date records and reports. In addition, the town supervisor did not make deposits and maintain accounting records in a timely manner. Auditors also determined the town supervisor did not file the town’s 2016, 2017 and 2018 annual update documents, which are required annual financial reports, with the State Comptroller’s office in a timely manner.

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Find out how your government money is spent at Open Book New York. Track municipal spending, the state's 170,000 contracts, billions in state payments and public authority data.

Substituting a "Rule of One" for the "Rule of Three" when making appointments from a promotion list

Although in People v Mosher, 163 NY 32, the Court of Appeals held that a civil service commission cannot mandate a rule of one with respect to appointing an individual from an examination eligible list to a position in the competitive class, the appointing authority itself may elect to be bound by such a rule. Such a decision has not been viewed as offending public policy because the appointing authority has merely truncated its ability to exercise its discretion with respect to selecting candidates for appointment from the eligible list.

When an arbitrator require the appointing authority to promote the highest-scoring bargaining unit member on a civil service eligible list based on a finding that a rule of one was mandated under the terms of the parties' collective bargaining agreement [CBA], the appointing authority brought an action pursuant to CPLR Article 75 seeking a court order vacating the award. The appointing authority contended that such an award violated public policy in that restricted the statutory discretion vested in the appointing authority pursuant to Civil Service Law §61 "to select one of the three highest-ranked candidates on an eligible list."

Ultimately the Court of Appeals* concluded that there was no strong public policy prohibiting an appointing authority from agreeing include a provision  in a CBA as the result of collective bargaining pursuant to Article 14 of the Civil Service Law, the so-called Taylor Law, requiring the appointing authority select the employee whose name appears first on the eligible list certified to it for that purpose.

The court explained that §204 of the Civil Service Law "empowers and, in fact, requires a public employer to negotiate collectively with employee organizations and enter into written agreements governing the terms and conditions of employment." Observing that "the public policy exception to the arbitrability of public sector labor disputes is narrow," the Court of Appeals sustained the arbitration award, observing that the promotional practices of a public employer constitute a term or condition of employment that may be determined through collective bargaining under the Taylor Law.

In contrast, however, determining the seniority rights in some situations are statutory such as determining an employee's seniority for the purposes of layoff based on the employee's "original date of permanent appointment" in the event of a layoff.** §64.2 of the Civil Service Law provides that an individual's original date of permanent appointment is the effective date of the individual's initial, and uninterrupted, permanent appointment from the eligible list, to be distinguished from the date the employee attained "tenure" in the position upon the successful completion of the employee's required probationary period at some later date.

For example, in City of Plattsburgh v Local 788, 108 AD2d 1045, the Appellate Division the court considered a Taylor Law contract provision which provided that the "date of hire" was to be used to determine an employee's seniority rather than the individual's "original date of permanent appointment.

Under the terms of the Local 788 CBA Employee A had greater seniority for layoff purposes in consideration of the fact that he had been provisionally appointed to his position before Employee B was provisionally appointed to his. But §§80 and 80-a of the Civil Service Law provide that the date of an employee's most recent, uninterrupted permanent appointment determines his or her seniority for the purposes of layoff and as Employee B had been permanently appointed to his position prior to Employee A being permanently appointed to his, Employee B would have greater seniority for the purpose of layoff determinations than Employee A pursuant to law.

When Plattsburgh laid off Employee A rather than Employee B notwithstanding the fact that Employee A had been employed by the City for a longer period than Employee B because Employee B been permanently appointed to the title before the effective date of Employee A's permanent appointment to the title, the Union grieved. Ultimately the union demanded that the issue be submitted to arbitration, contending that under the seniority provision in the CBA B rather than A should have been laid off.

The City, arguing that Civil Service Law §80 controlled and thus A, and not B, had to be laid off first, obtained a court order prohibiting arbitration of the grievance. 

The Appellate Division explained that §80 of the Civil Service Law "reflects a legislative imperative" that the City was powerless to bargain away, citing County of Chautauqua v Civil Service Employees Ass'n, 8 N.Y.3d 513, in which the Court of Appeals held that once an informed decision as to which positions are to be abolished is made, Civil Service Law "§80(1) obligates the employer to respect the seniority rights of its employees."

Similarly, in Szumigala v Hicksville Union Free School District, 148 AD2d 621, the Appellate Division, citing Cheektowaga v Nyquest, 38 NY2d 137, held that a seniority clause in a Taylor Law agreement violated §2510 of the Education Law when it permitted seniority in different tenure areas to be combined for the purposes of determining seniority with the District for the purposes of layoff.

* Matter of the Arbitration between Professional, Clerical, Technical Employees Association and Buffalo Board of Education, 90 N.Y.2d 364, posted on the Internet at https://www.leagle.com/decision/199745490ny2d3641423

** §80 of the Civil Service Law which, in addition to other requirements, provides that layoffs of employees in the competitive class "shall be made in the inverseorder of original appointment on a permanent basis in the classified service in the service of the  governmentaljurisdiction in which such  abolition or reduction of positions occurs...." §80-a of the Civil Service Law sets out similar provisions with respect to the layoff of employees in the noncompetitive class of the State as the employer.