The Newton City Council has voted unanimously to suspend civil service hiring practices to streamline and speed up the hiring of some entry level employees. A new state law that took effect July 1, 2024 allows city councils to adopt one year suspensions of the hiring practice associated with hiring civil service covered positions, such as entry level police officers and firefighters. Newton Fire Chief Jarrod Wellik believes the move will shorten the City’s hiring process by about two months.

“What we were encountering is that these civil service lists are good for one year, and by the time we got people on the list they had already been offered positions at other departments. So a lot of times our list was almost exhausted before even being completed.”

Wellik stresses that civil service testing requirements will still be in place. The Newton Civil Service Commission also approved the one year suspension.