Hot potato over hiring heats up/Civil-rights agency warns city of trouble

By DAVID SKOLNICK

skolnick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

The city is giving serious consideration to hiring an outside consultant to help change its controversial policy on hiring firefighters and police officers, the mayor says.

But the vice chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, an agency that has sharply criticized the city’s dual hiring lists, warned that a potential change to allow the appointment of anyone who passes the written test “would still violate the law.”

The city has a longstanding policy of using two lists — one for white men and the other for minorities and females — to hire firefighters and police officers.

Keeping the policy could result in lawsuits, particularly because a federal appeals court declared the use of two lists by Shreveport, La., to be unconstitutional in 2006, said Mayor Jay Williams, who opposes the current system.

After ignoring the mayor’s advice for months, city council recently agreed to allow the board of control, of which Williams is a member, to enter into a contract with an expert to prepare the tests.

Williams has suggested putting everyone who passes the written test on one list and then have city administrators pick qualified candidates for jobs on the police and fire departments. A passing grade is 70.

Minorities and women do not typically score as high on the written test as white men, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t qualified, he said.

“It’s not a perfect plan, but at least it advances us towards our goal” of diversity and qualified employees, Williams said.

The city’s current practice is to hire one minority or woman for every two men they hire in the police and fire departments.

In a statement to The Vindicator, Abigail Thernstrom, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’ vice chairwoman, wrote that hiring a firm would “indicate that Youngstown is interested in complying with the law.”

But she wrote that a pass-only policy would also violate the law.

Using the results of a nonranked test would require city council to again “go through the sham exercise of passing an ‘emergency ordinance’ temporarily exempting themselves from their own state law,” Thernstrom wrote.

There are “alternatives to race-based hiring,” she wrote. Those options include scholarships, mentoring and training for all applicants.

The commission sent an April 20 letter to city officials about their “racially-discriminatory methods” in hiring, writing that the policy “is unfair and divisive.”

The goal is to implement changes to the hiring policy by November when a police patrol officers’ written civil- service exam will be given, Williams said.

While council agreed to permit the board of control to hire an expert to prepare the tests, there is no guarantee one will be selected, Williams said.

The administration will first discuss what can be done with the city’s civil service commission and Jennifer Lewis, the commission’s administrator.

Hiring an expert could “get quite expensive,” Williams said.

But a new policy is needed, he said.

“We have an obligation to not discriminate, an obligation to not reverse discriminate, and an obligation to have a diverse and qualified work force,” Williams said. “We need to improve the process.”

Councilwoman Annie Gillam, D-1st and chairwoman of council’s safety committee, said she supports hiring an expert, but she also wants a local seven-member group that was put together by city council in June to look at the issue. The group has yet to meet.