51.362 Civil service employees; tenure; removal, discharge, reduction or suspension, procedures.

Sec. 12.

    The tenure of everyone holding an office, place, position or employment under the provisions of this act shall be only during good behavior and efficient service; and any such person may be removed or discharged, suspended without pay, or deprived of vacation privileges or other special privileges by the appointing officer for incompetency, inefficiency, dishonesty, drunkenness, immoral conduct, insubordination, discourteous treatment to the public, neglect of duty, violation of the provisions of this act or the rules of the commission, or any other failure of good behavior, or any acts of misfeasance, malfeasance or nonfeasance in office. No member of any department within the terms of this act shall be removed, discharged, reduced in rank or pay or suspended, or otherwise punished, except for cause, and in no event until he shall have been furnished with a written statement of the charges and the reasons for such actions. All charges shall be void unless filed within 90 days of the date of the violation. In every case of charges having been made, a copy of the statement of reasons therefor and the answer thereto, if the person sought to be removed desires to file such written answer, shall be furnished to the civil service commission and entered upon its records. The answer shall be filed by the member within 5 days after service of the charges upon him. If the person sought to be removed or reduced shall demand it, the civil service commission shall grant him a public hearing, which hearing shall be held within a period of 10 days from the filing of the charges in writing and a written answer thereto. Pending the period between the making of the charges as a basis for removal and the decision thereon by the commission, the member shall remain in office, but shall be suspended from duty without pay. At the hearing the burden shall be upon the person sought to be removed to prove that the removal is not justified. If the civil service commission shall determine that the action of the removing officer was not justified, then the person sought to be removed shall be reinstated with full pay for the entire period during which he may have been prevented from performing his usual employment, and no charges shall be officially recorded against his record. A written record of all testimony taken at such hearings shall be kept and preserved by the civil service commission, which record shall be sealed and not be available for public inspection, if no appeal is taken from the action of the commission. If the civil service commission sustains the action of the removing officer the person removed shall have an immediate right of appeal on certiorari to the circuit court of the county. The appeal shall be taken within 90 days from the entry by the civil service commission of its final order. Upon such an appeal being taken and docketed with the clerk of the circuit court, the circuit court shall proceed to hear the appeal upon the original record taken therein and no additional proof shall be permitted to be introduced. The circuit court's decision shall be final, saving to the employee, however, the right to petition the supreme court for a review of the court's decision. The removing officer and the person sought to be removed at all times, both before the civil service commission and upon appeal, may employ counsel to represent either of them before the civil service commission and upon appeal.

    If for any reason of economy it shall be deemed necessary by any county to reduce the number of paid members of any department, then the county shall follow the following procedure:

    The removals shall be accomplished by suspending in numerical order, commencing with the last man appointed to the department, all recent appointees to the department until such reductions shall have been accomplished. If the department again is increased in number to the strength existing prior to the reduction of members, the members suspended last under the terms of this act shall be first reinstated before any new appointments to the department shall be made.