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Home My WebLink About03-30-1988 Minutes MINUTES OF THE CIVIL SERVICE PUBLIC MEETING March 30, 1988 - 7: 30PM Meeting was called to order by the Chairman, Dan Epperly, at 7:30PM, Wednesday, March 30, 1988. Coates: The revisions that I have were revised as late as January 26, 1987, and the Police Department has been working from an older copy. What about the Fire Department? What date are the revisions which you are working from? Reagon: At the last meeting, we had 1987 revisions. I asked for a copy of the new revisions, and as far as I know, this is it. Watkins: Every time we revise or ammend these rules, they are revised by the Personnel Office, and that' s where the copies of the rules should be available any time anybody wants a copy. Coates: Pete has asked that one of his rule changes be updates sent to the Police and Fire departments. Staff concurs with this. We will get to that a little later in the meeting. Epperly: Re garding the memorandum from Marty Coates on a rule change, Section 2 . 09, that the word "City Manager" be replaced by the words "Public Safety Director" . All that does is reflect that we now have a Public Safety Director. Brill : Marty, are there still places in the rules where the City Manager still has a role? Coates: The City Manager, in fact, still has the right to appoint the two chiefs. Watkins: I so move that the proposed change be made. Brill : Second. Vote was taken. Motion passed unanimously. Brill : Marty, I noticed in Rule 5 . 10, there is an instance in which the City Manager has a role when there is a complaint. That' s something you might want to think about for another meeting, whether you want to leave "City Manager" in there or substitute "Public Safety Director" . Watkins: As a practical matter under that rule, couldn' t the City Manager decide to delegate it to the Public Safety Director anyway, so it doesn' t really necessitate a change. Epperly: Next, we have a memorandum from Detective Steve Coppinger, concerning rule 2 . 02 . He is recommending that we change this to read, "candidates successfully complete 120 training hours in addition to basic training hours. " Brill: When we made that change to go to a hundred training hours in specialized courses, that sounds to me like there is more involved than that, than there is in just one extended course. Is this a more rigorous requirement? Watson: It would be more rigorous plus it would be more clear because I don' t know what an extended course in traffic law enforcement is. I 'm sure you want to consider as extended or even what would apply to criminal investigation. We have monitored the courses and I think the least number of hours we have on anyone since they got out of basic is 300 plus hours training time. That is right at 400 hours and he' s only been here four years, so by , the time they've got their five years, they' ll easily have their 300 hundreds. Watkins: The rule wouldn' t really change the practice, it would just be a clarification of the rule as it stands now. Coates: Chief Watson also told me in discussing this, if we were sometime in the future to get a chief who wanted to play a little politics, that chief could possibly keep an individual officer from getting the opportunity to take an extended traffic law enforcement or criminal investigation course, where what we are proposing, is going to make it almost impossible for anybody to play politics. The officers are going to be able to get this number of hours in a reasonable length of time, so we think it' s fairer as well as being clearer. Williams: From the last paragraph of this memorandum, under current conditions, an officer can attend numerous specialized schools and never take a course that would fit under either category. Watson: That is listed in your current rules, the extended traffic law enforcement or criminal justice investigation. We could go to any number of specialized courses, but you wouldn' t ever maybe have one that coincided with you have described here. But if we change that to a hundred hours of specialized police courses, which that' s what we perceive there, then they could easily retain that. Watkins: Apparently at one point, our predecessor Commissions felt that it was worth requiring courses of these types, one in criminal investigation and one in traffic. Under this proposed rule, with 100 hours total as the memorandum from Steve Coppinger points out, you could get those 100 hours, but you wouldn' t necessarily take either one of those courses. I guess, what we have to think about as a commission at some point, there was some rationale for the rule. Watson: There was not formerly a law enforcement training academy prior to 1966, or somewhere in that period of time. It was set up where you had to attend some course someplace where you were sent off, but now with the academy, they have expanded the thing to eight weeks with an additional week of radar control and such things. They also teach a little of all these things. Then we send you to extended courses after that. This training we are suggesting is in addition to the academy. After an officer has been here five years, he will be fully qualified to be certified for promotion with this training. Watkins: I move that we accept the change as written. Seconded by Williams. Vote was taken. Motion passed unanimously. Brill: I have drafted an ammendment to rule 2 . 11, which came out of a question last year concerning Baker from Springdale. Our present rule basically states that someone who is a former fire fighter or a former police officer at another department, cannot apply for a lateral position. Mr. Baker was not eligible to apply for the position he wanted to apply for. Watkins: That' s because these rules say that in the first sentence 2 . 11, "Nothing shall be construed to prevent person' s employeed by other fire departments. . . . " Brill : currently employed", and it was my feeling that although I agreed that he was not qualified because of the rule, it is my feeling that the Fire and Police Departments may not be served by disqualifying people who have been in other departments in other cities and who have left. They should not be automatically barred from applying, therefore my suggestion reads, "Nothing in these rules shall be construed to prohibit persons currently employed by other Police or Fire Departments, or persons previously employed by other police or fire departments whose position terminated within the preceding twenty-four (24) months from applying for any position that may be filled by promotion. " In other words, if there is someone who has retired after twenty- two (22) years in the Springdale Fire Department and wants to come down here and apply three months after he has retired for the captain' s position, he would not be automatically be disqualified. Even though he is not currently employed, he is still eligible. He would still have to fill the other requirements. Watkins: I would be more comfortable with one (1) year as opposed to twenty-four (24) months, so that he would not get out of touch with what is going on. Brill: I accept that ammendment to the motion, that the time period be twelve (12) months as opposed to twenty-four (24) months. Watkins: Second. Coates: The City Administration has talked about that rule and that is the exactly the ammendment we would like to see for several reasons. One being, in a Police Department, once you are out, if you are out for more than a year, you have to go back and be completely re-certified at the academy. Where if you come back in before that length of time, you can go through a refresher course. So, we agree wholeheartedly with twelve (12) months. Reagon: I would like to say one thing that would effect the fire department on this. The age limit is going to catch somebody from doing it in the Fire Department. The ones that you are going to get in to take a test for promotion is going to be some from a neighboring town or someone who has had trouble with another department and has since left that department for whatever reason he might have. That' s the kind of people that you are going to get applying for promotional tests. Watkins: If there is an age problem, there is an age problem, and this rule would have no effect on that one way or another. It would allow somebody technically who has been in trouble in another deparment to apply, but it would also allow somebody who hasn' t been in trouble with another department to apply, and right now, we exclude both of them. We exclude somebody who had been a good employee and who has left the department for a good reason, as well as excluding someone who may have left a department under a cloud. My position is that we shouldn' t exclude a potential good person. There are ways throughout the screening process that we can try to catch the one who' s a bad apple, but I don' t think in the interest of keeping the bad apple out, we ought to exclude the possibility of finding someone who is good. Reagon: I know that Little Rock and North Little Rock will not allow lateral transfers in their departments, so that gives you a good background to keep confusion down between the two departments and the two cities. Basically, this is a career, and you hire on for a minimum of twenty (20) years is basically what the outlook is. Sometimes it doesn' t work out that way. Watkins: We've already gone on record as a commission because we have ammended our rules several times to specifically eliminate those provisions that bar lateral moves because we have felt, and I think I can speak for the Commission on this because we have agreed on the rule changes, that it' s not worth cutting off lateral applicants all together because we may lose good people that way and all this ammendment does is clarify, I think, what our intent was in adopting rule 2 . 11 to start with. So, I don' t see a need for any change in our policy at all, except to clarify our policy which is to allow for lateral applicants. Little Rock and North Little Rock can do what they choose. Epperly: It just allows us to at least look at these applicants. That doesn' t mean that that guy is going to be the one that' s going to get the job. We feel like it is our responsibility to at least look at the top candidates for the job. This rule allows us to do that. Coppinger: The only thing that I can see that you might have a problem with is taking Mr. Brill ' s position, if the guy has retired and been out of service for a year, and is drawing a pension from one state retirement system and acquires a position with this department, is it going to cause some kind of conflict between the two systems if he is going to try to retire here, also. Watkins: That' s his problem, and there is an additional set of rules and regulations that take care of that. If it would not be in his economic interest to do that, then he would not do it because he would be caught in those other rules, so again, I don' t see this rule effecting that. Those rules may have an impact on who actually applies if somebody has been retired, but we really can' t do much about those rules. Ledbetter: One thing we came up against last time, was that if they are going to allow somebody to come in and take the test, the three senior supervisors that they pick to do the evaluation needs to do the evaluation on the guy coming in. If you pick three people to do the department evaluation and then pick three other people to evaluate the guy coming in, that' s not fair. Watkins: What you are speaking to concerns another part of the rule that is not effected by this ammendment. Remember that we have for people within the department that they have to go through a departmental performance review. That' s right in there in the middle of rule 2 . 11. With a lateral person, we recognize that how can there be a deparmental performance review for somebody who hasn' t been in this department. The rule specifies that "in lieu of the departmental performance review required by Section 2 . 05, a lateral applicant must consent to release by his present and/or former employers to the Fayetteville Police/Fire Departments a true and correct copy of his personnel files, and interviewed by senior officers of the Fayetteville Police/Fire Departments with his present and former supervisors and fellow officers concerning his job performance. " So, we have in the rules right now, a method to deal with a lateral applicant. Coppinger: His past supervisor is going to evaluate him for our department? Watkins: His personnel records will be sent to us and the same people who conducted the department performance review of our men will review his file and meet with his supervisors and discuss with his supervisors in his old department to try to make a method for evaluating him. They can' t possibly evaluate a man that they haven' t worked with the same way they can evaluate somebody they have worked with, so we try to deal with that in the rule as it now stands. Doss: Why do we want to change it to where we can get someone who has quit a fire department? Can we change it where we could accept someone who is currently a fireman, an officer could take the test, which really, I am personally opposed to because I think it is bad for morale in your own department when you can have people from outside be promoted into your department. Why do we want to change it where someone has quit a department for whatever reason, can come to our department and take the promotional exam? We have found a lot of times that a person who has left another department under a cloud, that they' ll get a real good recommendation because that department does not want him back and they don' t want any problems with suits or whatever, but you' ll find out that there has been a reason that they've left that' s a valid reason. Epperly: I think that the Fayetteville Fire Department is probably head and shoulders above most anybody in the state. I think you could find firefighters in other departments who perhaps, because there hasn' t been an opening available, and as we had one come all the way from Oklahoma the last time we tested, just give their eye teeth to become a firefighter, so they will take a position in a fire department wherever they may. All the time, their real desire is to become part of the Fayetteville Fire Department, and when the opportunity arrives, then this is part of their goal to become part of the Fayetteville Fire Department simply because of the admiration of the Fire Department of Fayetteville as a whole and wanting to become part of your department through the knowledge of the organization itself, . camaradie that you have, the knowledge that you have, the reputation that you have. For my thinking, this would be one of the primary reasons that you would have in a lateral move, that you would have the desire to make a lateral move, simply to advance yourself to a better department, perhaps with a better future or a faster growing department. They might have family reasons or something. They resigned from this other department and they've come in here and they've applied for the promotional test. Our point of view on the Civil Service Commission is to be able to look at the top candidates. There may be only one guy at the Fayetteville Fire Department eligible for promotion to a certain level and we could call an emergency and upgrade maybe one or two others. We feel like that we should at least have the opportunity to look at this other guy that' s coming in from the outside. We may not hire him. He may not be the man for the job, but the way rules read right now, we can' t even look at him. - I Doss: I think that if it is going to happen, it should be someone who is currently a fireman at another department. Williams: There may be reasons why he' s not, though, that we just went over, other than him quitting with a cloud over him. Watson: Irregardless of what the problem is before they came and stuff, they' re bringing several problems on board with him if you bring in a lateral transfer to a supervisory position. We had a terrible problem with morale in the Police and Fire Departments before the City reorganization anyway, and you bring in a sergeant, a lieutenant or a captain, or whatever from outside, you are really going to create some other problems. If he is from out of state, he has to be certified through minimum standards to be on our department, perhaps his training where he is from would be adequate and they would accept it down there and perhaps not. That' s something you need to look at. Another thing is, the way it is set up now, a supervisor is only on a six-month probation but a new employee is on a year' s probation, so you are going to bring someone in from out of state, perhaps get them certified, they have been out of work for a year or six months or whatever, they would have to at least go back to take some refresher courses, so if they haven' t been to any accredited supervisory schools like we send our supervisors to, they are going to have to be sent to these, and the man is going to be on probation for a year and he is not at familiar with your policies and procedures, etc. So, you are going to have basically a year tied up in this guy trying to get him to a position to where you could turn him loose and trust him to run a shift or some portion of the department. What I ' d really like to see, and it' s just my personal feelings on it and it is with some of the other officers, that a new person coming in, if he' s a sargeant or captain or whatever at another department or eligible for that position here, they would have to work here one year before they would be eligible to take the test. You would still have that good man, and he would have paid his dues and learned our policies and procedures and would be certifiable to be promoted. That' s just another point of view you might want to think about. If we brought someone from out of state or even out of town that' s been out of work for up to a year, then we've got a lot of schooling to do on this guy. Reagon: I 'd like to reiterate what Chief Watson just said. It would work the same in the Fire Department. Every fire department in the state or county fire departments all have different policies and they all fight fire a little bit differently, but we all get the job done about the same. We'd have to carry that man around for a year before he really knew what was going on even though he was in a supervisory position. Another thing on the proposed ammendment, if you do go with this, I 'd like a lot cleared up by the definition "employed by other fire departments" because you could have a rural department out here at Pettigrew that might pay their firefighters $10. per month just to be a firefighter and he would be eligible to take this. Brill : Would "full-time employee" cover that? Watkins: I think the intent of our rule when we first adopted it, was for a full-time, regular emloyee, not somebody who does this as a part-timer or volunteer. Watkins: Marty, when we spoke about the twelve (12) month, I understood you to say that with that change that your recommendation would be to approve it. What are your comments on the statements of the others? Coates: I know the Commission does an awful lot of investigating and interviewing of the applicants and I don' t think you are going to accept somebody in as a lateral transfer unless you feel like they are qualified and I know you want the best person for the job and I think that' s what the City wants, so we would support it with a twelve ( 12) month ammendment. Coppinger: I think you are going to have trouble with the twelve month thing, because if someone is out of service for six (6) months, he loses his certification and he has to be re- certified by the State. He has to attend a sixty-hour refresher course which re-covers criminal investigative techniques, new statute changes that may have taken place to renew and validate his certification. Williams: Do you normally send people to a refresher course anyway? Watson: After an officer is promoted, we try to send them to a supervisor' s course, whether they are in-house or out of house. Our supervisors all attend a supervisory course. Williams: Back to this refresher course. Do they have a test to pass to qualify for reinstatement? Coppinger: If they do not pass the examination after taking the refresher course, then they have to go back and re-qualify. Williams: So, if they were out of police work for more than six (6) months, they could be re-certified and tested and that test would determine whether or not they could be re-certified by the State. Brill : One solution to that is to say that these applicants must hold a currently valid certificate for the State of Arkansas. That would cut out the out-of-state applicants, but it would avoid this six-month (6) "go back and recertify" . Watkins: Also, if a guy has to go back and take a refresher course, and he flunks, and would be in a position to have to take the entire training, then he would still be a probationary employee and we could can him anyway. I wouldn' t worry too much about it because the kind of people we would be looking at to hire, I don' t think would have any trouble with a refresher course. Epperly: We do have occasions, too, where we have a promotional job open up and those eligible within the department, be it Police or Fire, are limited. We get to look at maybe one or two guys. We just would like to be able to see some other people in this thing at that level who are qualified and that have that same background and have that same training, so that wherever they came from, and we are looking at one guy to promote, then as the Civil Service Commission we would be able to do our job properly and look at some people. We are not saying we would take them. We are just saying that we want the opportunity to look at the others and interview them. Williams: That did happen to us not too long ago where we only had one guy from the Fayetteville Fire Department to look at. It could happen in the Police Department also. Watkins: To clarify, everything in Section 1 is for new applicants and everything in Section 2 is for promotions. Epperly: There has been discussion. a motion has been made and seconded. Brill: I would like to raise the question as to whether we should insert the language, such as to indicate that it' s full • time employment and not part time employment. Watkins: What if we added something like "persons currently employed on a full time basis by other Police or Fire Departments, or previously employed on a full time basis" . So, just add the words "fulltime basis" . Epperly: Howard is going to stay with the motion with the twelve (12) months and the wording will change as discussed. Williams stays with his second. Brill : I would like to raise the question which Sabra and I have discussed. The age requirements of thirty-five (35) and thirty-one (31) for appointment to the Departments, is that only for entry level or does it also apply to lateral applicants, and John' s point and Sabra' s point is that those age limits only apply to entry level because they are in 1 .01 . I don' t know the answer, but that is something we need to clarify before this problem comes up in the future. Coates: These ages are set by State legislature and confirmed by the Feds not long ago. As far as I know, entry level is all that they addressed. Watkins: I personally don' t see any problem because the first section of the rules, entitled "Probationary Employment • Policy Qualifications for Applicants", and the second section of the rules entitled "Promotional Policy" . I 'd be glad to put a paragraph in there which addresses it, but I would never assume that they meant that. Brill: I feel that they'd be cleaner if we had something making that point clear. I don' t think that now is the time to address the age subject, since we don' t have a copy of the statute in front of us, but I feel that we should research it and clean the statute up a little by clarifying it. Epperly: Don' t you think we should have an opinion from the City Attorney? Watkins: In addition, there is an error in Rule 2 . 11 as it is now written. In part A of the rules, it says "a copy of his personal file", and of course, that obviously means "personnel files", so I would move that we change the word personal to personnel in clause A in 2 . 11. Williams: Second. Vote was taken and passed unanimously. Brill: In Section 2 . 01, I have also proposed to change to promotional within the Fire Department and promotion within the Police Department to make sure that our rules are the same as the State statutes and the rule says, "No person shall be eligible for advancement from a lower rank to a higher rank until that person shall have served at least one (1) year in the lower rank. In case of an emergency as determined by this Commission, the Commission may permit persons who do not fulfill this requirement to be tested for a higher rank. " In other words, you have to serve one year as a sergeant before you can test for lieutenant. This just cleans the Section up and incorporates it into our rules. Watkins: Mr. Chairman, I move that we ammend those rules. Williams: Second. Vote was taken and passed unanimously. Coates: I have a suggestion. When you have these public meetings, anyone wishing to propose changes, should submit them to Staff and the Commission in advance so that they can review them and the proposed changes can be given to the City Attorney can look them over. There needs to be a deadline which would be included in the public notice. Watkins: The way that would work would be that if anyone from one of the Departments has a proposed change, we have to have a public meeting, so if you give us the thing in writing, we have a chance to look it over and evaluate it. McCord: I think the City Staff wants to be as supportive to the Commission and render as much assistance as possible, but in order to do that, the staff needs to know what you are considering. So I think what your suggestion is, when you consider a proposed ammendment to the rules or a change in procedure, or whatever, to advise all parties of what you are considering so that we can provide you with whatever backup information we can provide to assist you in reaching the ultimate decision. If there is, a legal issue, I can research it and give you an opinion. If there are procedural problems as far as the cities operation, I can let you know what impact that might have on City procedure. Let us know in advance what changes you are considering. Let us give you all the backup information we can give you which you need to make the ultimate decision. Watkins: We also, may at times, ask Jim for language for a particular problem which we need to address. Tonight, I take it, what we' ll do is to look at these three ammendments that Howard has drafted, and if there is no further discussion, that these would be the three ammendments that we would have at the hearing, and then between now and the hearing, there would be time for Jim to look at them to see if he has any problem with them. Therefore, it seems that every time we have a public hearing, we need to have a preliminary meeting to discuss proposed changes and revisions. We can ammend the rules to take this into consideration. McCord: I think that this is something which can be handled internally with the City. The City can issue a memo to the Police and Fire Departments saying that if you are going to propose an ammendment to the Civil Service Commission Rules, submit it in advance to the Commission and to the Director of Public Safety, for them to consider and a decision will be made on whether to call a public meeting on the proposed ammendments. Brill: The newspaper announcement needs to state that a list of proposed changes to the rules and regulations of the Civil Service Commission is available in the City Clerk' s office of the City of Fayetteville. Williams: I make a motion that we expunge the motion made at the previous meeting on the eligibility of Mark Hanna. Watkins: Second. Vote was taken and passed unanimously. Epperly: Do you want to address the recommendation by Chief Jackson? Watkins: All it does is to clarify what we already have in 2 .01 c and d apparently to make it conform to the actual positions which we have at those ranks in the department, and the only real change seems to be the requirement that there be at least one year in the capacity as supervisor in the most recent year. Other than that I really don' t think that there is much change. Doss: I think it meant clarifying about the one year in the previous rank being made parallel to the state statute. I think that this has already been addressed by Howard Brill. Brill: Mickey' s ammendment does add in addition to fire captain and fire marshall, training officer or other person requiring the rank of captain, so he clarifies the positions better. That, plus the "most recent year in a supervisory capacity" specifies what it means. Epperly: I think we have done basically what he wanted done in our ammendment already. Watkins: I think if we strike "at least one year of which (the most recent one) has been in the capacity" . Brill: I think that adopting it in this way is inconsistent with the whole package. The only thing I think we need is the phrase, "or other position requiring the rank of captain", if we need that. Watkins: I agree with Howard. If we just say, "No person shall be eligible for examination for advancement to any other postion requiring the rank of captain. " We are still going to ammend 2 .01 c and d as Mickey suggests. We are actually just going to add a phrase to c, "No person shall be eligible for examination for advancement to fire captain, fire marshall, or any other position requiring the rank of captain. " Brill : Second. A vote was taken and passed unanimously. Epperly: We are now ready for Lt. Reagon' s proposals. Reagon: Item #5 - We are hiring young people to fill entry level positions. Basically, they are fairly newly married, most of them are renting and cannot afford to buy homes at this time. This is an outline showing an average price of homes located outside the current residency circle and the average price within. The Fire Department no longer has a requirement to respond to off-duty fires as we once had. We've never had a known shortage of help at a fire. Reagon: The city is growing and fast expanding. I 'm not sure what the mileage is on the growth area or on the proposed growth area outside the city limits of Fayetteville. Watkins: Before we go much further on this, I certainly say I agree with you on the problem with the prices of homes. I have a friend, a former student, who just moved back up here from Little Rock and is now finding out how much living in Springdale - I versus living in Fayetteville, for example, will cost. I am really aware of that problem. I guess one of the things that I 'm concerned about is that one of the last times we talked about this, the matter went before the City Board, and I would like somebody to refresh my recollection as to what was discussed. There was at least a point where the City Board was involved in the Residency Requirements that I cannot remember. Williams: I can' t remember the exact details of it, but it seems to me that somewhere in the thing we got ruling from McCord that part of the residency requirement was somewhere in our City Ordinances. The City Board took it out of our hands in some cases. There is some point at which we may not have the final say. Martin: Are all employees required to live within the City of Fayetteville? Williams: Fire & Police are the only City Employees that have a residency requirement. On the City Board, there is a Public Safety Committee. When I was chairman of the Commission, there was something that came up and the City Board came in to take over when there was a residency thing. Someone asked for an exemption and the City took it out of our hands. Brill: The following is an opinion from McCord, City Attorney, "The Arkansas Statutes are neutral on the question of whether a residency requirement for uniformed employees should be a Civil Service Commission Regulation, a departmental rule, or a City Personnel Policy provision. " Coates: As late as last Monday, he did reaffirm that they are legal, that residency requirements are legal. Brill: It' s clear that they are legal, but the policy question is whether the City wants to impose them and here, it is which body in the City is going to impose them. In August, 1985, we had questions principally in the fire department. The letter says, "The residency issue was transferred to the Police and Fire Committee of the City some months ago. The Police and Fire recommended an August 1, 1985, that the residency requirement should be a part of the City Personnel Policy. " I asked Jim McCord if he had an opinion, and he said the Statutes don' t say anything, but apparently, the Police and Fire Committee on August 1, 1985, said it is a matter for the City Board and not for this Commission. As of that date, the City said they want to make that decision, not us. Watkins: I think you need to go to the City Board, even they may not have this Safety Committee anymore. Reagon: Question for Marty, can we petition the City Board to hear this? There is a lot of things that have changed since 1985 . Coates: Howard, didn' t you say that that was part of the Personnel Policy? It wouldn' t be the Board, then. I think with policy, you go to the City Manager. Brill : Police and Fire Committee apparently made the decision that it would be a part of the Personnel Policy. I think that information came to me from Ron Bumpus. Watkins: The point for present discussion purposes is that it is not our decision right now, at least to the best of our knowledge, since the Arkansas Statutes according to the City Attorney, are neutral on the point, and the City has apparently decided that it is not a matter for us to decide. Coates: I ' ll work with you on it and we will find out which way to go. Doss: Does that mean that that part of the Civil Service Regulations is the same as we read it now, and that whatever the Personnel Policy says is that what it is supposed to be? Williams: No, it is still the way it is written in the Regulations. It is still the way it is written according to David (Dodds) . As I recall, we got into this and we were quite upset about it. We disagreed that they should have the call. Watkins: We felt like it was our decision and we had lost that battle, but there has been to my knowledge no change in the residency requirement, which would still be on the books. The questions is who has to change it. Doss: If the City Board deleted that, then what would this mean to the regulation? If someone petitioned the Board and they changed the Regulation, then these Regulations would be ineffective. I always thought that Civil Service Rules were more or less like State Statutes type, more of a law. Williams: That was our argument exactly. We argued this position, that we should be the ones to rule in that particular category because it' s part of the rules and regulations that we were supposed to working with and they didn' t see it that way and took it out of our hands. Coppinger: Has there been a revision of the City Policy that we have not gotten yet? Coates: No, but there was a lot of work, if you' ll remember, or if you probably knew, we were working on one prior to the new City Manager coming on board. The Board did not accept that which we presented to them and directed the City Manager go back and re-work it. He is coming up with an entirely new City Policy, but we are still under the old one. 1 Coppinger: Do you recall if this has been addressed in the new policy? Coates: I have not even seen the new policy, not even a draft of it. Hoyt: If some movement is started to approach the Board on this question by employees, the Board is going come back and look at this Rule 703 . Is it going to be the Commission' s position that you are still 100% for this rule? You passed this rule. Are you still in favor of it or would you show any support for any movement by employees? Would the Commission be willing to delete that rule, so that there was not rule and the employees would have to worry with the City? Watkins: We can' t delete the rule. That' s the point. I was trying to remember what happened at the time. There was a movement afoot to change the rule the last time around, and the question then became, could we change it or does that change have to come from the City, is the way I remember, even though it comes from our rules. We may have adopted it the first time but now the thrust of what the City Board apparently told us before was, it' s a rule now, it hs become City Policy, and you guys can' t change it. Any changes are going to have to come from the City Board. That' s why we did not do anything last time. I can' t remember what brought it up, but it seems like there was an exception and somone applied for an exception. We could not handle. The City Board handled it. Hoyt: If what Mr. Brill read (the letter from McCord) said that the State Statutes were neutral, it still looks like that you could get rid of a rule that you made and let the City worry about reinstating on their own. Williams: What you don' t realize is that we have already gone through this with the City once a couple of years ago and got voted down by the City. Watkins: I would, for one, be certainly willing to entertain a suggestion that we make a recommendation, or that we abolish this rule, or go on record as saying what we think the policy should be. I 'd be glad to consider that. I don' t know if I speak for everybody else. Epperly: I don' t think we are in a position to vote on it. Watkins: Whether we are in a position to vote on it or not, are we in a position to recommend? That would be the alternative. Epperly: I would rather see us have the authority placed back with the Commission to handle the problem rather than go on a recommended solution. Watkins: If that' s the case and you believe we ought to have the decision, then I am inclined the same way. I think it ought to be a Civil Service Commission decision and I think we ought to perhaps go on record one way or another, either being for it or against, and then if the City Board wants to tell us to reinstate it, that would be their business to reinstate it. Williams: If you are asking for a total abolishment of the Residency Requirement, I am opposed to it. Watkins: That' s what the suggestion was and what Rick Hoyt is saying is that he would like us to vote either up or down on that recommendation. Doss: I thought maybe the City Board, that they had put that in the Policy, and also wondered if Mr. Morris or Mr. Coates might recall if there is something in the Personnel Policy toward the end of it about the "Magic Circle" . It seems like I remember reading that term written and it may be in the Personnel Policy. Morris: I think it is in the Proposed Personnel Policies. Epperly: If we have a new Personnel Policy coming up, maybe we should just wait and see what the new Personnel Policy comes out to be. We might make a change and then get reversed on it when the new Personnel Policy comes out. Coates: I would be happy to work with Pete Reagon and find out which way the City Manager wants to work with it, get an opinion from the City Attorney, or something. I don' t know if Pete wants to wait until the new Personnel Policy comes out. Epperly: Since they've done away with this Public Safety Committee, we might want to tackle that issue again as a Commission and see if we can get that authority back to the Commission for Residency Rules. Martin: I never understand how they took over the authority anyway since they had no backing from the Board. Brill : Apparently, in early 1985, there was a problem, I think in the Police Department, of discipline and the Chief did not know if he could discipline someone who lived outside the Circle limits, so to clarify the issue of residency and discipline, it went to the Police and Fire Committee. That' s how they got onto it in 1985. Coates: I may be speaking out of turn, but I think there is something, and I 've talked to Jim McCord about this, that there is something to the effect where you folks on your local rules essentially must adopt a City Policies and that' s where I think that comes down. Brill: That' s where McCord' s opinion hedges. When we 1 asked McCord for an opinion as to who has the authority to do this, us or the City Board, Jim came back and said the Statutes are neutral . Coates: If the City Board had written that you had to go by the Magic Circle, then you have to go by the Magic Circle. Watkins: That' s not clear, Marty, because Civil Service Statues of the State give regulatory power to this Commission wholly apart from the City Board. What Jim told us in that opinion is those statutes don' t answer the question as to whether we have the power or the City Board has the power. Our position at the time was that we had the authority, and because that is part of Police and Fire Personnel regulation, then that duty rests with the Commision and not with the City Board by State Statute. Jim was saying that it' s a toss-up, so he just didn' t answer our question then. I guess what I would prefer to do, I 'm sort of agreeing with Rick, is that we either ought to go ahead and decide it, assuming that we do have the power to do it, and then let somebody correct us if we' re wrong and if we don' t have the power to do it, we will have at least been on record as to what our opinion is. Hoyt: Before you make any decision, because I can tell Mr. Williams has already made his mind up in one direction anyway on this, I would be for limited to Washington County. I don' t know what other people would say, but I would like to say a couple of things about residency requirements. One, I don' t think that people, as a whole, are going to live so far away that it is economically unfeasible. They are not going to move to Fort Smith and drive over the Mountain every day. We' re not going to have a bunch of people do it, but it would allow those people that wanted to live a few more miles out of town than others to do it. Watkins: May I interrupt? I think that before we get to the merits of the proposal, we have decide what we are going to do procedurally. Your arguments are fine, but they go to the merits of the proposal and I think we need to decide as a Commission whether we are going to entertain a proposal or not. And then once we decide to entertain a proposal, argue the merits. Martin: I make the motion that the Civil Service Commission consider an ammendment to the rule on residency. Watkins: Second. Brill: Two points: I assume that we are not going to entertain such a motion tonight. That is, the actual motion of residency. I don' t think we should entertain it tonight in part because I thing that we should give some notice to the City Manager or someone what we are going to do since two-1/2 years ago they said they thought they had the authority. I think we should say, in effect, you haven' t done anything with this power, so we are going to exercise it and then, if they want to jump in in the next 30-60 days, let them jump in. And if they fail to act, then I feel we should entertain a motion. Watkins: Withdraw the second. Martin: I withdraw the motion. Brill : The Commission will hear a motion to change the residency requirement in the Rules and Regulations, but not until after June 1, 1988. This motion shall be distributed to the City Manager for him to act prior to that time. Martin: I second that motion. Brill: If the City Manager says, let them have it, then we will take it. Epperly: If the City Manager says, no, that' s our decision, then we are out of it. Brill : We took the position back in 1985 very forcefully that we would prefer to exercise this power. Motion carried four to one. Reagon: Item #1 : There will be a standing list of officers about to retire during the year. What we are asking for here is the case that has happened in our department (Fire) , and I am sure it has happened in the Police Department, where a captain, lieutenant, sargent retires. Then a man is appointed to that position until such time as a test can be held for promotion. That man has an advantage over the other applicants for promotion in that he has served in that position for however long it is until the testing procedure is completed. I feel like it would not take that much more of your time, which I know is valuable, during the April and October entry level examinations to give the promotional examinations, if there is a position available or coming available in the calendar year. The written exam would be over with, and there is not going to be that many applicants for promotion for the position. Brill: I guess I don' t know what you mean by a standing list for promotion. Reagon: Right now, we have a captain who will be eligible to retire in a month and a half to two months. Rather than wait until he says, "yes, I 'm going. ", have a list ready the day he walks out the door, someone could fill his position. Brill : You mean, , test in advance. That is not the same as a standing list. I don' t know what a standing list is. Doss: I don' t have any problems with testing in advance, but I do have problems with saying every January we' re going to test for every possible tank. Reagon: No, that' s only if an officer is eligible for retirement that calendar year. Williams: Let me ask you, Pete, would your wording be better to say that there be a certified list of retirements for that year. Like, if you knew the guy was going to retire in August, that you go ahead and certify in April, like when we have our entry level examinations. That when we know in January that this is going to be eligible for retirement in August, we go ahead and test for that and certify in April for that forthcoming opening provided he goes ahead and retires. Reagon: Yes, that' s exactly what I want, but a case in point is Marion Doss, Assistant Chief, is eligible for retirement, but he has not expressed any desire to retire, so I don' t think there is any need to test. Watkins: When does someone who is eligible for retirement give notice of his impending retirement? Is there any requirement that he give notice so much in advance? Reagon: No. Watkins: Then that' s what you need to do, is do that. Then once that person give notice of his retirement, then we treat it just like a vacancy and we test. Reagon: That' s a two-week notice, which is given in any job. Watkins: That' s not enough time to test. Reagon: That puts you all in a position where you have to have a special test. Brill: The only time we test now for promotion is when we have a vacancy. Reagon: Right, but sometimes it takes two months to get the testing processing completed. Brill: Now, that' s not quite true. When Mickey first came on the Department, I think he saw that there were going to be a lot of retirements, and we tested for almost everything in early 1986. We developed a list. That' s the only time, as far as I know, that we've ever done it, because he looked at it and said, "I see these retirements coming. " I think that if a Chief does that, we are willing to go ahead. Watkins: There' s nothing in our rules that speak to that issue right now about when we have tests. What we've been doing is testing when the chiefs tell us there is a vacancy and then we test. I don' t understand really how your proposal would really alter that because as soon as the chief knows that there is going to be a retirement, we could test, or if he reasonably anticipates a retirement, I suppose we could test, but to say that we are going to have a standing test every January, no matter what, just because somebody is eligible for retirement that year, I think that' s unnecessary. Coates: That' s essentially management' s point of view, too. We feel that you are losing your options as to when to have tests. You' re going to end up having tests when we don' t need it. They' re expensive, too. We think it' s fine the way it is because you folks try to respond as quickly as you can. Springston: What we' re getting at is a case in example is Assistant Chief Doss when he was promoted to his position from Captain. That left a vacancy for a shift captain in our Department and three months went before another captain was picked. A man that was currently a lieutenant filled that position during those three months. He did a captain' s job without captain' s pay for three months and it gave him an advantage, also, then when the test finally did come around with three months experience as a captain that none of the other applicants had. Watkins: I don' t know why that couldn' t have been fixed, since we knew there was likely to be a vacancy in a captain' s spot, that we couldn' t have also, at the same time scheduled a test for not only Assistant Chief, but also for Captain, and, therefore, kill two birds with one stone. We could still do that and it would not require any ammendment to the Rules at all. My point is that I think we could handle that administratively by working with the Chiefs without having to make any changes in the rules, because the only thing that would effect us is telling us when we have to have a test. That' s all we need to know, because that' s what we' re doing now. Reagon: The reason for this, and we thank you greatly for the time, but different chiefs and different commissions may not respond the way that we are doing it now. If it was in black and white, then the problem would be solved. Brill : But if you put it in the rules, though, the Commission is still held to when we' re told that there' s going to be a probable opening. Watkins: Unless you make us test so much for each position automatically, which I don' t think any of us want to do, because that costs money. It' s not just a time factor, it' s a money factor in connection with the tests. Brill: It' s written in here that we would still have to be told when there is a forthcoming retirement. Watkins: I haven' t thought it through yet, but I would probably have to object to this notion of every six months or so we test for every position just because of the possibility of a vacancy occurring. I don' t think that' s a very efficient testing program. Epperly: I concede going along with an early test. I don' t see anything wrong with that at all, but I agree with John, I would object to testing for the pure joy of testing. Reagon: We don' t want that. Doss: What Pete' s saying basically is that if a captain says my time is up in June and I 'm going to retire. Then the Fire Chief could ask the Commission to test for the position. Brill : Pete wants something a little more formal than that. I don' t think he just wants to trust the retiree to tell the Chief when he is going to retire and then the Chief tell Personnel and the whole process to begin. Watson: I agree with what Watkins was saying earlier, but I see a couple of problems. If you have an early test just as a standard procedure, for instance, and we were to have a test for an Assistant Chief and someone lacked two or three months, or whatever, being eligible to take that test at that time, but when the opening came up, he would be eligible, but he is not on the list. You'd have a little bit of a fight there that he wasn' t given an opportunity to take the test if you have a free-standing test already. Williams: I think it still goes back to the point that we have to be notified and if you put in our regs that we' re going to do these tests, we'd still have to put in there that we'd still have to be notified before we could do the testing so that comes back to the department chief or assistant chief. Springston: How much time do you anticipate or should go by from the time the chief request the test be given and the test actually happens. Epperly: On the written test, I have no idea how long it takes to get that ready to use. Brill : Six to eight weeks from the time that someone tells us, the written test should be given in that time. We have no control over that, in part we have got to advertise and give a certain period of time to allow people here and elsewhere to say that they want to come take the test. Watkins: The idea is that the temporary lieutenant or captain, or whatever will have an advantage in the written testing, the departmental evaluation and the interviews because the person has a track record and none of the others do. All they 1 can say is that I have this potential . The one that' s in there has a track record and it happens in all kinds of areas of administrative law, not just this one. I 'm not sure anybody has ever found a solution accept to say that the person who temporarily holds the position has no advantage when it comes to making the final decision. That' s about the only legal response there has been and that' s to say that that can' t be a factor in the minds of the people making the decision. Now whether it is or not is another question. Martin: It seems to me that this issue should be handled by the rules of each department rather than the Civil Service Commission rules. And, in the case of retirement, somebody who' s had a career with the department, surely they care enough about the department to be willing to give notice of their retirement plans like three months in advance, a quarter of a year. If something happens and they are sick, it' s like any other catastrophe, and you test immediately. It' s desirable to test ahead of time. I think you can get around the eligibility thing by saying anyone can sit for the test who will be eligible by the time of appointment. Watkins: That' s what the rules say. For example, here' s the one for Fire Chief, "No person shall be eligible for appointment to Fire Chief until that time that person has at least ten years service. " Brill: But that' s not true in the case of other positions because the rules say "No one shall be eligible for examination for fire promotion. " We had that come up because the day of the exam, he did not have his three years in and we said he couldn' t take the exam. I 'd like to handle it administratively or informally, rather than putting something in the rules. Watkins: Rule 207 says "When a position becomes vacant, and subject to being filled by promotion, the head of the respective departments shall select for appointment, the person who ranks highest on the promotional eligibility test. The way that language is written it seems to contemplate that list is in existence when the vacancy occurs. So in accordance with that rule, which seems to comtemplate that the testing occur before the vacancy, couldn' t we just ask the Chiefs to advise the Commission when they become aware that a vacancy is pending that a test is needed. That can' t guarantee that there will be a test before the vacancy actually happens because sometimes it might be short notice. If we get two weeks notice that there is going to be a vacancy, we can' t possibly test in two weeks no matter what the rules would seem to contemplate. But, if it' s three months, we can have a test in three months. Epperly: I think generally speaking, we can probably get more notice on a twenty year retiree. This present rule may not be the best, but I think it' s better than anything we have come up with so far. I still think we can test early which would help the situation, but I would oppose a standing list of certified candidates. Brill : I would suggest that we urge Rex or Marty to, on or about January 1, or some other time to systematically contact both chiefs and try to get their best evaluation of possible retirements or leaves in the coming twelve months so that we can test. Watkins: In fact, it might be wise to ask them to advise the Commission as to what vacancies are likely to occur and recommend to the Commission what promotional tests should be given. If they do that shortly after the first of each year, then we could try to test, perhaps around April, when we tend to test for everybody else anyway, so I think if we put it that way we could try to formalize the procedure a little bit but without locking us into something. Epperly: I ' d go along with that. Watson: Standard practice has been with our retirees, even though they can retire in June, July, August, or somewhere in there, they' ll stay until after the first of the year to get whatever cost of living raise to go on their pension. That' s just been a common practice, so I could tell Marty now I 've got a captain and a lieutenant that are eligible for retirement this year. Chances are they will work on to the first of the year. Testing early now is not going to benefit that position. Epperly: Is this the trend of the fire department? Do you have any trends set like that? Doss: I think most people are probably going to wait until after they have an anniversary date that they are going to get a raise on or something like that, a step increase or longevity, that they are going to wait until after that. As Chief Watson said, if it' s close to the first of the year and there is a chance for a raise, I guess they'd wait for that. Watkins: I guess we ought to ammend our suggestion then, and that is not necessarily to have each Chief do it on January 1, but have each Chief annually give us a notice at approximately the same time each year, of potential retirements. Picking January 1 would be kind of arbitrary. The Police Chief might have a different date from the Fire Chief. Watson: What are you going to do about the people who might be eligible by the date of the test that wouldn' t have been a month before? Watkins: If they' re eligible on the date of the test, they can sit for the test. Coates: But what if they become eligible between the time you give the test and the time vacancy occurs. Brill : Then they are out of luck. That' s the way the rule is now. Coates: But I think we are going to have some problems with that because I think people, as soon as their eligible, and there is a vacancy, they want to be able to sit for that. Watkins: But that happens now. Anyway, someone might decide to quit today and that frees up a lieutenant' s spot. So we decide to have a test tomorrow and there' s a fellow who gets his required time in a month from now. He' s out of luck because the problem is when we schedule the teet and it would exist under that scenario or any other. That' s always the problem. Coates: That' s true, but I think, what the Chief and I are recognizing is that they don' t have a problem if they become eligible after the opening, but if you give the test at an arbitrary time, four or five months go by, and four or five months in these departments means a lot to these fellows. Watkins: What happens if we have an opening right now because somebody has retired today? Then here I am. I 've got my three years in and I could take the test. There' s another guy who' s six weeks short of three years, and if that retirement had occurred six weeks later and he would have been eligible, and we wouldn' t have set the test until such time as he could take the test, too. In other words, you' re always going to have that problem. Coates: You' re always going to have it. Watson: One other thing to consider: What if you give your test two months ago and there' s a guy who is due retirement the first of this month and whoever is first on the list, the retiree doesn' t like and decides to ride it out and the first on the list is not going to get the promotion. If you wait until the vacancy is announced, or he says yes, I 'm retiring as of this date, and then I come and tell you that I have a guy who is going to be gone as of that date and you start the wheels in motion, he is going to be out of there by the time you have given your test. Watkins: This is the problem that Pete' s talking. He' s going to have a time in there when he' s going to have someone doing that job and who is probably going to test for the job. Coates: Personally, I would rather do it the way it is so that more people become eligible. I would rather see more people eligible for these tests than I would jumping in and giving the tests and then maybe somebody is going to retire. Reagon: You' re not going to have that many people eligible in the three month span or say even a two month span. Coates: It' s important to the guy who is eligible, though. Reagon: What happens after that testing is completed and say there is a list that is good for a year with six names on it. You may have two lieutenants going to retire in that year. The people that are eligible after the testing date are in the same boat as the ones you are speaking of. Coates: That' s true, but at least that' s set. What we are talking about is arbitrary and it may set there for a long time and not even be needed, but then when it is needed, the guys who've become eligible, then they are not going to be given the opportunity. Coppinger: I think that if the Chief begins examining the records in January and says I 've got two people who are going to retire, one in June and one in August, there' s no point in having the test between January and June. But you could schedule it later that year. All he has to do is ask these two guys. Are you going to stick around for your step raise or your cost of living raise. If they say yes, you can postpone it a little longer and then you are not going to be able to pacify everybody that wants to be eligible to take that test. And, giving it a little later in the year, it' s good for a year, you' re not going to have to worry about him waiting until the first of the year. You' ll still have your standing list. If he waits until the cost of living raise in January, you've still got your eligibility list good for a year. You' re not going to have any major problems. Epperly: Do we want to rule on each individual proposal? Watkins: Have we taken any action on that one? Epperly: Not yet. Brill : We need to make a formal recommendation to the administrative staff. Watkins: Why don' t you make that in the form of a motion. It won' t show up in our regulations anywhere, but it will show in our minutes. Martin: I move that this be an administrative problem and not be dealt with in the Civil Service Commission Rules. Brill : With the understanding that the Chiefs will have close communication with the Personnel Officer so that we can test as vacancy become known or likely. Watkins: Second. Unanimous vote for motion. -- Epperly: Number 2 : That background checks be performed for any applicant whose was discharge was less than honorable. This is a moot point since a background check is already done on each applicant. Reagon: How thorough is this check? Watson: It is done by professional people. We do everything including credit checks. We run any wanteds, check references, past job performance, driving records, send fingerprints into the FBI to see if there is anything on them that might be against them or to their benefit either. Watkins: Also, when we have somebody who has a bad paper from the service, then we always, as a Civil Service Commission, inquire as to the circumstances of their military service, and if we perceive a problem, we can always direct that the chief not recommend that anybody be certified. Coates: Mr. Chairman, we agree with Pete' s suggestion there. We also would like to add, because we want to be sure that there is adequate time for thorough background investigation, we' d like to add to that that applications should be submitted to Personnel no later that the second Monday of March or the second Monday of September. That will give us plenty of time then to go the background checks and investigations. At this point, we don' t have a deadline to do that. Watkins: We also have had interviewees come before us where the background check has not been completed, or it has not been done yet. Brill: Regulation 1. 02 currently says, "the application has to be turned in five (5) days prior to the written exam. " You want to move it up almost three weeks prior to the exam. Coates: We want it exactly three weeks prior to the written exam. That' s the reason we went to the second Monday of the month prior to the written exam. This will give us plenty of time to do the background checks and investigations on the applicants. Brill: Keep in mind that I don' t think we use this background, screening information until we get to the interview stage. We don' t use it on the day of the written exam, do we? Coates: Why should we run them through a written exam if they've got a blemish that' s going to eliminate them, because we have to pay for those tests. Watkins: But the problem is, who makes the decision to knock someone out of the test on the basis of the background check. Watson: I can run it and if a man has a felony conviction, or whatever, I can come back on the background to Mr. Morris, which I did on this last testing, with someone we would not hire under any circumstances, Coates: If he doesn' t qualify at the basic level, then you don' t even want to see him. Epperly: With the Chief' s ability to get this background information this quickly, do you really need the additional time. Coates: Yes. In fact, we came to this conclusion in our discussion Monday when all the Chiefs met. Watson: You see, we' re dealing with maybe forty applicants between the two departments and I don' t have the manpower to do all that is required and be thorough. Coates: The staff came to the conclusion that we needed three weeks. Watkins: Your recommendation is we change it to read that the application must be submitted three weeks prior to the written exam. Coates: What we are recommending is that the applications be submitted to Personnel no later than the second Monday of March or the second Monday of September. That way, it is going to hit the same every year. Watkins: What I 'm saying is that there is really only one thing that will knock you out automatically, and that is if a person has been convicted by a state or the Federal Government of a crime, the punishment for which could have been imprisonment for which could have been imprisonment in a federal penitentuary or a state prison. Coates: That would automatically knock someone out, yes. Watkins: That' s in rule 101e, according to minimum standards. If a background check turns up somebody like that, sure you could bump them, but what happens if it turns up somebody who has a bad discharge. That' s not an automatic disqualification. Brill: Or they have three speeding tickets, or shoplifting as a child, or something like that. Who is going to make that decision? We've been testing those people now anyway. Watson: When you gave us the certification list this last time, we weeded out, I know, two for bad credit references. They owed everybody in the country, but it didn' t show up on anything else until we did that and it' s a bad reflection on us if we hire somebody who owes everybody. He' s sixty, ninety, one hundred twenty days behind in his bills. L- Watkins: I don' t have any objection to weeding the people out beforehand, but before we weed them out beforehand, there has to be some type of standard that the Chief can use. For instance, we are not going to look at anybody who is a convicted felon, or who has done time, or who has horrible credit. If you can bump all those people out in advance, that' s fine. Martin: You have to define how horrible the credit has to be. Brill: We also have another regulation that conflicts with this. 1 .03 says, "Prior to taking the oral exam, all applicants must pass the preliminary background check. " You want them to pass that background check before they take that written exam. So we'd have to change that rule. I think we need more time to think this thing through, at least this particular change. Martin: How much is the cost to run each background check? Watson: It varies. The credit checks run from $3 . 00 to $16. 00, depending on where they are from. The time involved to running all of this on the terminal, the phone calls (a lot of them out of state) , and it varies. Martin: So it is the more expensive process than the testing. Watson: I 'm not sure what the testing costs, but when you add it all together, you' re going to have quite an expense. Martin: I 'd be real interested in what it costs to run an average background check for a group of forty and divide by forty and see what your average is per person. And we need to figure up what the written testing costs, because, in the past, we thought it was more expensive to run a background check than it was to give the written test, including the MMPI, so our thinking on it was to do the written test. They have to be fingerprinted before they can take that written test and some people haven' t really shown up for that written test and that between taking the written test and the oral exam, was when those background checks were supposed to be done. Usually, that' s been three to four weeks. Watkins: There have been cases, though, like the Chief said, where we haven' t had a background check done and we've certified people who've then later been bumped. Martin: We can eliminate some people on these written test, especially the people who are not very smart and your people are a little crazy. You don' t have to do background checks on them, so that saves some time and money, too. Coates: When you consider money out of pocket, obviously the testing costs more. Watkins: I certainly don' t have any objection to moving up the application deadline because that would help insure that we got the background check done before the oral interview which has been a problem in the past. I would agree with Marty that we could move that date to the second Monday of the month prior to date of the written exam. I think we can go ahead and implement that change and that doesn' t make any difference in the question that the Administration has to decide whether they are going to do all the background checks first, in advance of the testing, or whether they are going to do some of the checks after the testing, or what. But in any event, they've got to do it before the oral interview. Martin: It seems to me that the Personnel Officer can go over the applications in advance and give a pretty guess as to which ones should be done before the written exam. He might not get them all, but he can get a idea of some of the obvious ones which are not acceptable. Watkins: I make a motion that we make the change that Marty proposed. Second Monday of March and the Second Monday of September is the deadline for submission of applications to the Personnel Office. We are also asking the Administration to review the costs of background checks prior to testing so that we can look at this a little further. A vote was taken and passed unanimously. Martin: This also means that the advertisements have to be out, because you know that in the last few years we have had people accepting applications up to the day before because they did not get the advertising out in time. Go ahead and put that on the calendar. Coates: We talked about that and Rex knows that he has to back it up even further for the announcement. Brill: We are going to have to change rule 3 .03, which says we have to have an ad ten days before the exam. There' s no point in having an ad ten days before the exam if the applications have to be in four weeks early. Coates: We could make it ten days before the application deadline. Brill: Advertise in February, application come in in mid- March, we test the first of April, interview in late April . Watkins: We might Consider two advertising dates, one thirty days before the application deadline and one fifteen days before the application deadline. Brill : I make a motion that the notice be placed in the newspaper fourteen days before the application deadline. Watkins: Second. Motion passed four to one with Martin voting against. Epperly: Item #3 . Reagon: Application evaluation should be performed by a panel of three officers chosen by the Chief. The last paragraph of this section giving the Chief the option of performing the evaluation should be deleted. If the Chief choses not to evaluate that applicant or that applicant is from out of state and cannot show up, then he is automatically given thirty to fifty points. Watkins: No, it means that if the Chief elects not to interview the applicants, then the Commission' s interview is weighted more heavily to take into account that there was no interview by the Department. That' s all that means. Brill : Our interpretation has always been that the phrase "the evaluation of the Chief" means he can use whomever he wishes within the Department. Reagon: We changed that last time for promotional evaluations where the chief and two other appointed officers of higher rank perform the evaluations. Watkins: There is a legitimate reason for distinguishing promotions from entry level because we want a variety of people who have seen that person at work evaluating in the basis of a promotion. For entry level, no one has seen the person work before. It is just an impression, and that explains the difference why we do it differently. You just want us to spell out who performs the entry level evaluation, correct. Reagon: It could very easily be done by on-duty officers at no cost to anybody with a panel of three officers. Epperly: Item #4 is covered by 1.06 of the rules and Regulations of the Civil Service Commission. Item #6. Reagon: We would like to have Section 1.08 changed to spell out "for any breach of the Civil Service, City or Departmental Rules and Regulations" . Coates: In a staff meeting we held on this particular rule, the City Attorney said he would like to see us leave it as it is because it complied with the State Statutes. In addition to that, this wording also complies with the rest of the City employees. Watkins: It also has another consequence regarding one' s employment status, the difference between an employment at will situation and the definition of a probationary employee is one who is at will and to modify the rule with this change as suggested would really no longer make that person a purely probationary employee. That would be a very major change in the rules. It was unanimously decided to leave that rule as it stands. Watkins: On Item #7, the real issue here is whether we are going to have separate tests for each of these positions: Fire Captain, Fire Marshall, Fire Inspector, Fire Instructor, etc . Reagon: An example the reason for separate testing was when an instructor' s position opened up and no test was given. The top person on the list of the Captain' s test got the job. Epperly: Is there really that much difference in the tests for the different positions? Watkins: What specific test have we given now and how have we decided which tests to give? Martin: My understanding was that the Fire and Police Chiefs make up these tests. Watkins: I would just as soon leave it with the Chiefs' discretion to choose a suitable test or to produce a suitable test for the position. Coates: At out staff meeting, the Fire Chief recommended that we leave it as it is. He thinks it would be too many tests to have one for each position. It was decided to leave the testing to the discretion of the Chief of the respective departments in conjunction with the Personnel Department. Reagon: Item #8, section 2 .Olf: "In the event a vacancy occurs, and there are two qualified applicants, there should be deemed a valid test and no emergency should be declared" . The guidelines used for determining when an emergency should be declared should be more clearly defined. Epperly: There needs to be some latitude to this because, if there are only two applicants for the promotion and there two other officers who may be close to qualification, then it would give the Commission a wider range. Then again, it might be that two would be enough. Reagon: The emergency clause is actually 2 . O1G, but there is no 2 . O1G in the bottom of that paragraph. There is still nothing in there that says the Civil Service Commission has the right to declare an emergency. Brill : It is in the Statutes, for sure in the State Statutes. 1 i Coates: Staff' s recommendation is to leave it as it is. Brill: Let' s table Item #8 until we have time to review this point. Reagon: We would like to move to Item #19 since it is the last one which pertains to the Police Department. Section 5.09: "Any complaint filed against any member of either Police Department or Fire Department must be signed for action by the Civil Service Commission. Epperly: That is already in the Rules and Regulations. I have had four complaints against the Police Department this year and I think our rules specifically say that we have to have a written letter signed by a citizen. Watkins: It does not say it has to be signed by a citizen, but it "has to set forth, in detail the specific nature of the complaint, the actual basis therefore. Upon receipt, the Commission shall immediately forward the complaint to the chief for investigation. " I think the clear intent of that is to have a written, signed complaint, but we would be glad to put it in there. Reagon: We do have a complaint in the Fire Department that was anonymous and was not signed and it was investigated. Coates: It turned out to be valid. It was handed to the Commission, who gave it to the Secretary. She gave it to me and I gave it to the Chief. He investigated it and found it to be valid. It was handled. Epperly: It never came back to the Commission. We took no action on it. Williams: I think there is a concern about anonymous complaints. If somebody doesn' t have the guts to sign their name to a complaint, it wouldn' t mean anything. I wouldn' t object a bit to say if somebody has a complaint, they ought to attached their name to it. Just like newspapers won' t publish a letter to the editor unless it' s signed. There' s no complaint if they refuse to put their name down. Hamm: I think the biggest concern here is to protect ourselves in the future. If the letter is signed in as anonymous, and we had something in black and white, this would be investigated, whether it was valid or invalid is not the point. Watson: Just because, if it' s not signed and the Commission takes no action, it would not preclude the Fire or Police Chief or administration from investigating the complaint, if there appeared to be some validity to it. Watkins: Subsection B says: "within fifteen days from the date on which said report is mailed to the complainant, he may file a written request with the commission for a hearing on this complaint. " Now they cannot do that anonymously. It' s the only way you can file a report with the commission. Under A, all we do is forward the complaint to the Chief, the Chief makes a report under A and then forwards it to the complainant and then that person may file a written request with the Commission for a hearing. Now surely that has to be in writing. We' re not going to have a hearing on something that' s done anonymously. Coates: In essence, you can' t handle one it it' s anonymously. You can look into it, but you can' t handle it. Watkins: What we' re saying is that to require that the complaint with the Commission be in writing and signed by the complainant would not effect the ability of the Chief to investigate on his own, even an anonymous complaint, unless you are wanting us to take that authority away and say that the Chief cannot ever investigate an -anonymous complaint, and I don' t think we are ready to go that far. I think we have to talk about two different things. If we get a complaint under A, whether the complaint is anonymous or signed, Subsection A of Rule 5. 09 says we forward it to the Chief, which is what we would do. Now the next step, which is the Chief doing a report. He forwards that report to the Commission. Then in Subparagraph B, the Chief is supposed of that report to the complainant and then the complainant can ask for a hearing. Now obviously, if we are in the situation in B, we are not going to get to that part, unless the person has identified himself. When we get to that point, the person has to identify himself or we do nothing. According to A, if we get a complaint over the threshold that is signed or anonymous, we will forward it to the Chief and let the Chief look at it, but for us to take any further action on it, the guy obviously has to do it in writing to satisfy paragraph B. Epperly: In B, the Commission writes the complainant a letter explaining his rights of filing that written complaint with the Commission and then the Commission has the opportunity to determine whether or not they want to hear it. We don' t even have to hear a complaint, even if it' s valid. By the same token, if we get letters of commendation, we send those to Marty to be put into their personnel files. Watkins: The question is, as we understand the rules, did they address your concern? Reagon: Our main concern was that if we get an anonymous complaint, it should go in the trash can. Watkins: Then we shouldn' t even send it to the chiefs. Reagon: Unless yOu get ten of them on the same guy on the same incident. Epperly: I think it has to be the Chief' s discretion as to whether or not to put them in the trash can. Watkins: There is a safeguard that if it ever comes up to the Commission level, that person has got to identify himself, so you' re protected. That' s pretty clear in the rules. But, if the person does it anonymously, and we send it informally to the Chief to look at, I think it' s got to be up to the Chiefs to decide whether or not to investigate. We may get an anonymous report, the Chief may get an anonymous report and neither one of us knows the other has it, and say they are anonymous reports from two different people, but all the facts or allegations match completely, if the Chief doesn' t know we have it and we don' t know the Chief has it and both of them get thrown away, nothing gets done and there may be a meritorious complaint. I think we have to continue our present practice of just sending all complaints to the Chief, but we don' t get that many inquiries. Epperly: If you' re concerned about prejudice against you by the Chief with the anonymous complaints, you also have your regulations covering your grievance hearings. If you feel your Chief has been prejudiced by anonymous complaints that may or may not be valid. Reagon: That' s putting the domino effect on everything here which is an undue hardship because, if somebody wanted to pick on a guy, like if a police officer writes somebody a ticket twice in a week, he could really cause that man a lot of grief. Watson: Not really. Not with anonymous letters. I am not required to give them to the Commission, so if I don' t see any validity in them, I chunk them. Epperly: I understand you concern, but I don' t feel that it is a problem, considering the fact that there have been no incidences in the last eight year. Do we have any motions? We will move on to the next item. Watkins: Let me make one point for the next time around, if you would forward these suggestions to your Chief and to Marty, then we can get these things well in advance and we can think about them and we would have read them and looked at the rules and we could go a lot faster if we already had them. Reagon: If you will notice, our proposals are dated in June, 1987. That was a problem with the previous Personnel Officer, and I have been told that that will never, ever happen again. Item #10 - we would like to have it that the same three officers evaluate applicants on the fire grounds. The Chief can appoint himself or he can appoint three different people to evaluate the applicants. It does not have to be the same three. We'd like to have the same three doing the evaluations. Brill: That' s what the rule says, "The performance review L of all the applicants shall be conducted by the same senior officers, unless unusual circumstances prevent it", 2 .05C. Watkins: We have to have a little bit of flexibility in the case of illness or something like that. Coates: Staff recommends that we leave it as it is now. Reagon: We wanted the number clarified. We want it clearly stated that it means three officers, not two or four or five. Doss: I think that it was in 1983 when the Civil Service Commission ammended this rule. Previous to that, we had had a promotional deal and each exam and the captain on each shift would evaluate only their only men and we came back before the board and asked that the same three people do the evaluations to take care of personal favoritism. Everyone wants their own shift to do the best, of course, and that' s the reason they put this in the rules. Epperly: Has this been adhered to pretty much since 1983? Doss: I thought it had. Pete said something about two. Perhaps one time when there were two captains on duty that day or something. Watkins: If somebody tests for Captain, how many are going to be above senior rank? There' s only going to be the Chief and the Assistant Chief, but in every other situation, there could be at least three. If three is a good number, then what is the problem? Williams: If you say three when possible, I 'd go along with that. Epperly: I 'd say three when possible. Will that satisfy you? Williams: I make the motion that Section 2 .05C, "the department review of the applicants be conducted by at least three officers, if possible, senior in rank to the person being reviewed. " Martin: Second. A vote was taken. The amendment passed by four to one. Item #11 was tabled until the Commission has a chance to review the exams. Item #13 was voted on and passed to correct the typographical error in the Rules and Regulations. Item #s 14 & 15 were already discussed earlier in the meeting with other items. Brill: On Item #16, years ago we considered having the Texarkana program where you have Public Safety Officers, and we required applicants to sign a statement saying they would cross train as both fire and police. I don' t think that' s being considered now. I don' t think it' s in our rules and I don' t know why we need to deal with it. Reagon: Entry level personnel are still required to sign that affidavit. Coates: Staff feels that they should continue, even though we don' t feel that we are going to the pure Public Safety, there are still times when we do want to do a little cross-training. Brill : Pete, our problem was that we would have people show up and want to take both exams on the same day. That was the reason that was put in there so they could not do that. Brill : Item #17, Study Guide. I think that when we look at exams, we need to look at what type of information we give you before the exam. I think that is very appropriate, but we are going to review our examination procedure and that needs to be a part of it. Coates: Staff would like to be involved in that if possible, because providing study guides can cause some real serious problems. Epperly: Then we are not in a position to anything about that right now. Reagon: If I might make a quick comment, the major problem with this was whenever We first started giving the national test, when Mickey came, and it completely blew everybody' s mind. They were citing court cases in New York City when we live in Fayetteville, Arkansas. That' s a long way from New York City. Watkins: Most tests, at least the ones I 'm familiar with, have some kind of sample questions to give you an idea of what to expect. The scope of the exam, what it' s going to cover, and I don' t see any problem in doing that since most test come prepared with that sort of thing. Coates: But we don' t want to be in a position where we have to furnish reference material as far as books, pamphlets, that type of thing. Watkins: I think we have an obligation to advise people what to expect. Reagon: Item #18: Section 5. 01L Coates: Staff agrees wholeheartedly with that recommendation because it will bring us into compliance with the Statute, so we agree. Watkins: "While on duty", that' s the key. I so move. Brill: Second. A vote was taken and passed four to one. Item #' s 19 and 20 were taken care of earlier. Item #21 is under advisement. Reagon: Item #22 : Post "Notice" at all the stations. I think that can be handled very easily through the fire chief. Before, it was not getting to the Fire Chief. Coates: Staff agrees with that. Watkins: 8. 02 says, "where the notice shall be posted", so if we want to require that the notice be posted in the City Hall, we require that they post it at the fire stations and the police department. I move that we ammend rule 8. 02 to reflect that posting change. Epperly: Second. Vote was taken and passed by four to one. Item #23 Watkins: I would like to have the current changes in the regulations within 30 days. I have never had a current copy of the regulations with any reasonable time since they have been promulgated. I would like to have my copy within 30 days and I think everybody else is entitled to that, too. If you all can' t make those changes on a word processor, we are in big trouble. Coates: That' s true. It' s not in the word processor yet. However, it' s our intent to do it, but we just don' t like being tied down to thirty days. Watkins: Marty, I just disagree. I don' t understand with modern word processing equipment why these changes couldn' t be done tomorrow. I feel that thirty days is reasonable. Brill : I don' t think the City should have to provide a copy to 105 Police officers and Fire Officers. I think we should get two copies to each Chief, or something like that, and then the chief makes them available to his people. I don' t think that every man is entitled to a copy. Watkins: If they' re available within 30 days from the Personnel Office, you can come over and get a copy. 1 Reagon: It' s been our ur standard operating P g procedures manual that supposedly a current copy of the Civil Service Commission Rules and Regulations be made available. Watkins: If the rules are made available thirty days after the ammendments are made, and I think they should be, then as long as those rules are made available to the Chiefs of the departments, I think you guys are going to get them. I do think it is important that a copy of the current set of rules be made available within thirty days because everybody needs access to a current set of rules. My motion would be that "A copy of the revised set of rules and regulations shall be prepared and made available to all members of the Commission and the Chiefs of the departments within thirty days of their adoption. " Epperly: This is administrative and not a part of our rules and regulations. We will go on record that a copy of the revised set of the rules and regulations be made available within thirty days. Reagon: The reason we would like to have a rule, and it' s no reflection on Mr. Morris, but considering the past problems we've had, because you have not had a current copy because of the Personnel Officer. If this rule is in there, we will have a copy. Watkins: I move that we make a new Section, 8.03 of the rules to read, "After the rules have been ammended, a complete set of the ammended rules shall be made available to all members of the Commission, Public Safety Director and the Chiefs of the Fire and Police Departments within thirty days of their adoption. " Martin: Second. A vote was taken and the motion passed unanimously. Meeting was adjourned at 11 :30PM.