There are set to be 36 gubernatorial elections in 2026. On the stump, the answer to rising housing costs, infrastructure backlogs, and clean energy delays is increasingly the same across the political spectrum: permitting reform. What most candidates haven’t reckoned with yet is that “permitting reform” is not a single policy. It’s a conglomeration of dozens (maybe hundreds) of small, wonky changes to laws, procedures, and cultures.
In this series, “The First 100 Days”, we’re going to share our playbook of high-impact, politically neutral approaches to reform that governors can execute in their first 100 days without even needing much help from a legislature.
#5 Waive Civil Service Exams
Recommendation:
In states with civil service exams, governors should waive the exam requirement for key positions. Exams generally result in long wait times that, in turn, make it hard for agencies to fill vacant roles. And understaffed agencies aren’t able to permit projects quickly.
On July 2, 1881, Charles Guiteau walked into a train station in Washington and shot President James Garfield. Guiteau claimed he was cheated out of a job. He had campaigned for Garfield and believed the new administration owed him a consulship in Paris. When the post never came, he decided the only rational response was to put two bullets in Garfield’s abdomen.
The president died weeks later. The murder stirred Congress to action, passing the Pendleton Act shortly after. By 1944, 21 of 48 states had passed equivalent laws.
These laws aspired to establish a merit-based system to measure if an applicant is fit to be hired and promoted by a government agency. A key tactic these laws employed, and the focus of this post, is the civil service exam.
While the federal exam the Pendleton Act created was eliminated decades ago (and replaced with too many other well-meaning hiring requirements that others are working to reform), some states continue to use them. And like many other policies that draw ire from Abundance types, the civil service exam process was overengineered. In some states, there are hundreds of potential exams candidates can take to qualify for various jobs. The outcomes of that overengineering weren’t measured, and it turns out the system hasn’t resulted in better staffing decisions. In fact, quite the opposite.
New York City’s Staffing Crisis
New York City is bound by New York State’s civil service law. Over 80% of city government positions require applicants to take one of 180 different exams. Until this year, all test takers had to pay a fee (some still do). In total, it takes 15 months on average to get hired. The result, predictably, is understaffed agencies. The city’s social service agency has a 12% vacancy rate and now requires overtime from staff. The Department of Health is hovering at 17% vacancy and seriously behind on restaurant inspections.
Understaffing is also threatening one of Mayor Mamdani’s marquis policy priorities: affordable housing development. In one study, 62% of affordable housing developers said understaffing at NYC’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development was the primary reason for delay. Today, about 12% of positions at the agency are unfilled, 3 times higher than the city’s average.
New York HELPS
New York State is bound by the same laws as New York City, but by contrast, Governor Hochul has taken an aggressive approach to reform with the Hiring for Emergency Limited Placement Statewide (HELPS) program.
HELPS has 3 main components: it waives exams for most positions, waives fees for the rest, and funds new testing centers across the state. In only 3 years, HELPS waivers have filled almost 42,506 state vacancies deemed “critical.” At the Department of Environmental Conservation, the agency responsible for writing the majority of permits in the state, NY HELPS has helped fill 713 roles over 3 years; that’s a large share of the workforce, considering the agency only employs about 3,000 people.
In states with cumbersome civil service laws, waiving exams is merely a first step. It should be followed by much broader, systemic reform. However, in the short term, it will ensure permitting backlogs aren’t made worse by empty desks.