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By Root 1086 0

of the city’s accomplishments, downplaying its problems. He said the city had “turned the corner” because he had “made the tough decisions.” His “balanced” $14 billion budget for fiscal 1978 contained money to rehire laid-off workers, stop the attrition clock from running, keep libraries open, provide pay increases and slightly reduce taxes—though he acknowledged the next three budgets would be in the red. It would be left for the next Mayor to play Scrooge. Asked why the Mayor was halting the agreed policy of shrinking the city’s work force, Deputy Mayor Zuccotti replied, “That’s a good point. I would say to you there probably would have to be additional reductions in city manpower.” Beame had made a political decision, and one with productivity consequences. By emphasizing what had been done rather than what remained to be done, by expanding rather than contracting the city’s budget and work force, the Mayor was flashing the green light, whetting appetites, blowing an opportunity to win greater public support for change. Why should a worker or resident believe further sacrifices were required when the Mayor’s actions suggested otherwise?

The new Koch administration promised to emphasize productivity. As a candidate, Koch opposed “blind attrition” and vowed to improve services. Yet as mayor he enlarged Beame’s attrition program. His first management report said “nothing of the quality of performance” of city agencies, complained Queens Councilman Edward Sadowsky. It listed the number of arrests, he said, but not “how many arrests held up in court”; cited the number of square yards of streets repaved, but not the number needing repavement. Koch’s four-year financial plan, unlike Beame’s, called for major management improvements and savings. But it also contained this little-noticed sentence: “The citizens of New York will continue to encounter reduced services.”

Civil Service

On his first full day as mayor—January 2, 1974—Abe Beame issued an executive order requiring all agency heads to select civil service aides strictly on the basis of the highest decimal-point rating on a written civil service examination. The message: there would be no favoritism in the Beame administration. The Lindsay administration’s “reform”—permitting a commissioner to pick from one of the three top exam scorers—was banished. Henceforth, the mayor’s written permission would be required. Beame, the career civil servant, was hailed by the civil service associations and many good-government forces. It was commonly assumed the Mayor had minimized “politics” in the selection of staff aides.

Fear of “politics” has a long tradition. The civil service system was first introduced in 1883 as a reaction against the spoils system. Washington newspapers once carried political advertisements requesting $5,000 in cash for a $1,500-a-year government job. New York political bosses involuntarily advanced the career of cartoonist Thomas Nast, who immortalized their cigar smoke, corruption, bulging wallets and stomachs. With the introduction of the civil service, government workers were given a necessary sense of security, of protection from political whim and favoritism. “My father was a barber,” Arthur Tibaldi once told a reporter. “He said, ‘You need security. Work for the City. You got a job for a lifetime.’ ” That sense of security was important to an immigrant population, and created greater government stability and professionalism.

But over the years the civil service calcified. A system designed to protect the public’s interests came to protect the employee’s; granting employees what, in effect, is lifetime tenure, is not the best way to keep them on their toes. The merit system became, in the words of a 1972 report from the city’s administrator, “a meritless system.” This 143-page report, prepared under the guidance of Deputy City Administrator E. S. Savas, went on to plead that good people could not be selected solely on the basis of a written examination (the federal civil service, for instance, permits no written exams above college entrance level).