Commission reaffirms appointing authority's authority to let certification expire

Candidates on a certification for civil service positions do not have an appeal right based on an appointing authority's decision, when based on budgetary or other valid grounds, to request a certification from a new eligibility list without making any appointments from an existing certification, the Commission ruled recently. The ruling came out of the appeals of three candidates for appointment to police officer in the Revere Police Department.  The candidates' opportunity for appointment expired when the City returned an August 2011 certification, on which they appeared, without making an appointment and requested a new certification in November 2011 from the new eligibility list on which none of the appellants' names appeared. Revere claimed that it returned the August 2011 list because it did not have sufficient time to review the candidates' backgrounds before October 31, 2011, which was the deadline to provide the names of appointed candidates to the Commonwealth's Human Resources Division.  Since the City returned the list for legitimate reasons and not to prejudice any of the individual appellants, no basis existed for the appeal, the Commission rued. "As a general rule, an appointing authority may decide, in the exercise of its sound discretion, to postpone or discontinue a hiring process for budgetary or other reasons."