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Practical revisions needed for city residency rule

The city of Williamsport was ready to hire a human resources director to handle the insurance and benefits package for 218 employees.

There was only one problem. The director-to-be could not meet the residency requirement that is part of the city’s personnel requirements.

So City Council cut its residency rule for city workers and plan to form an ad hoc committee to come up with a revised residency policy that fits the 21st Century.

“We have a mess,” Councilman Joel Henderson admitted.

In a perfect world, all workers for the city of Williamsport, paid for by city taxpayers, would live within the city’s boundaries. That world does not exist in 2017. These are more transient times for employees, some of whom travel as much as an hour to get to their place of work these days.

And a city the size of Williamsport may not be able to attract employees to fill certain positions by limiting itself to just its own municipal boundaries. That was the case with the human services director’s opening, according to Mayor Gabriel J. Campana, despite a salary of $52,000 plus benefits.

For practical purposes, some changes are in order. We don’t believe that would preclude the city’s personnel staff from favoring those who live within city limits when the position legally allows for that sort of discretion.

But the plain truth is that the traditional residency requirement that worked for decades has probably been outdated since about the time the Internet became a way of life.

It’s time for some practical revisions.

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