In the recently concluded New York State legislative session, PEF lobbied for, and secured, a waiver of Civil Service examination fees starting July 1 and continuing through the end of 2025.
As a result, the Department of Civil Service (DCS) will not be collecting examination fees for examinations held on or after July 1, 2023, through December 31, 2025.
“New York needs to do everything it can to attract and retain workers in order to address staffing shortages across multiple agencies, and waiving Civil Service exam fees should help,” said PEF President Wayne Spence. “PEF was proud to support this legislation from Sen. John Mannion and Assembymember Stacey Pheffer Amato so that current and future members of our union can more easily seek other job opportunities or begin fulfilling careers delivering the quality public services PEF members provide.”
The new law also forgives past fees for any candidates who owe them. Once their fee(s) are forgiven, any candidate eligible to be activated on a current active eligible list, will have their name made active on the list.
In the coming weeks, candidates will be notified if they are activated on a list due to fee forgiveness. Once this action is taken, agencies will be notified, and candidates may check their list status by logging into ELMS Online at: https://www.cs.ny.gov/elmspublic/index.cfm.
As a result of the forgiveness of past due fees, agencies may find additional candidates on their lists when ordering new list certifications. Agencies will not be required to close out current certifications and open new ones when the fee due list restrictions are lifted.
Questions regarding fee forgiveness may be directed to FeeUnitMail@cs.ny.gov, and those related to list status may be directed to EmploymentRecords@cs.ny.gov.