Public Employment in Georgia State Agencies

Georgia’s 1996 elimination of merit protections for newly hired employees challenges the legal protections that act as a barrier to unfettered government action. This article reviews the implications of Georgia’s reforms in light of constitutional protections and judicial precedent. Although this reform effort sought to avoid employees’ procedural due process rights by eliminating merit status for newly hired employees, federal and state judicial decisions indicate that those rights may not be so easy to extinguish. The most pressing challenge involves the constitutional right to due process. The Supreme Court has determined that public employment may rise to the level of a property right, requiring procedural due process. The courts have used a variety of standards to confer a property right interest, including the existence of language in policy and procedure manuals. Accordingly, many of Georgia’s agencies may have unknowingly promulgated employee regulations that lead to the expectation of a property right in continued employment.