At its Dec. 15 meeting, the Custodial Civil Service Board (CCSB) rejected a Portland Public Schools (PPS) proposal to give special treatment to Portland Habilitation Center (PHC) janitors who are applying for permanent positions with the school district.

PPS is returning to an in-house custodial staff because of an Oregon Supreme Court ruling that the district’s 2002 decision to contract out custodial work to PHC to was illegal under the Custodial Civil Service Law.

That law requires that PPS hire from a pool of applicants created by the CCSB, which is supposed to administer a competitive examination open to all. PPS wanted to allow an ungraded cleaning class offered by PHC management to substitute for the graded examination for applicants from PHC. The PHC class was not open to the public at large, unlike the exam, which tests basic math and English reading ability.

The district’s proposal was opposed by returning custodians, who belong to Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 503, and by others who took the test when it was last given. Several hundred applicants took the test in August 2006, but the hiring process stopped while the CCSB considered the district’s proposal for several months.

PHC, and SEIU Local 49, the union that represents its employees, argued that using only the test would discriminate against applicants on the basis of national origin, since some PHC applicants have limited ability to speak English, and the test was in English.

Others at the Custodial Civil Service Board meeting argued that it was perfectly valid to test English ability, as English is needed on the job. Wayne Curtin, a returned custodian, said he’d seen how language difficulties with some PHC immigrant workers have prevented them from understanding and carrying out instructions.

And one PHC employee told the Custodial Civil Service Board not to let the class substitute for the test.

“I took the PHC training course, and I didn’t think very highly of it,” said Robert Baker, a former Freightliner machinist.

After several hours of testimony, the three-member Custodial Civil Service Board unanimously rejected the PPS proposal because of the 11th-hour revelation that PHC offered the class only to its disabled employees. PHC is a non-profit that gets preference for government contracts under a law meant to employ individuals with disabilities who need a sheltered work environment. Custodial Civil Service Board members felt that since some of the limited-English janitors might not have taken the class, the class wouldn’t remedy the concern expressed by the district about discrimination.

Custodial Civil Service Board did however agree to another PPS request — to reduce the weight of the exam in the hiring process. The exam was to have counted for 60 percent and now will count for 20 percent. Work experience, employer reviews and answers to interview questions will count for the other 80 percent.

“That’s not fair,” said applicant Bruce Komlofske, who complained that the district reduced the weight of the exam after he took it.