New Haven Independent

This was one of many complaints voiced in a more than four hour meeting of the Board of Aldermen’s joint Municipal Services and Public Safety Committee on Monday. The city, led by Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Rob Smuts, defended its position to use only the oral portion of a three part exam as the basis for who makes the cut.

Of concern to those in attendance is the fairness of the test, the communication error between the city and all involved and the procedure followed in making the decision to weigh only the oral exam.

There are 26 open spots in the fire department and nearly 1,300 applied and 1,098 people took the written test, the first step. If an applicant received a score of a 70 or better, according to the city of New Haven charter, they moved onto the next round, the oral interview. 771 took the oral test and 226 passed. Last was the agility test. Applicants were to be ranked on the average of both the written and oral test.

When the city changed those standards and decided to only rank the top applicants on the oral test, they didn’t tell anyone- neither the applicants nor the “stakeholders,” (fire commission, the union, etc.) were made aware of the changes.

Smuts acknowledged the lack of communication was a mistake.

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The decision about the oral test’s superiority was made on February 16, according to Smuts, Director of Human Resources Tina Burgett and Noelia Marcano, Chief Examiner. They said that CWH, the testing organization that ran the recruitment and testing, explained in a conference call that the oral exam should be the only portion weighted.

Thirteen aldermen were present at the meeting. The most vocal was Hill Alderman Jorge Perez, pictured, who was also just a guest at the meeting and therefore not required to attend. His main concerns were with how and why the decision was made to use the oral exam to whittle down the number of applicants and if it was legal since the New Haven Charter was was not fully followed.

“The point is, is the process fair,” he asked. “Was the intention from day one to get a list of 200 people?”

Perez as well as others wondered why such a large percentage of people failed the oral test, and were therefore not ranked at all.

“Why didn’t they want to use the written,” asked Egan, noting that cognitive skills aren’t measured on the oral test. “What was the recommendation based on?

Burgett said the oral test provides a “richer look at candidates” and that they needed to “get the number down to a manageable number.”

Chairman of the Civil Services Commission Jim Segaloff, pictured, was the first to testify. He took a lot of heat from Perez and other aldermen in reference to why the commission, whose job it is, according to the charter, to set the rules for hiring practices, allowed the testing to go forward as it did.

The charter also mandates that the personnel director is in charge of hiring and examining all applicants for positions in the “classified service.” But the city has not had a personnel director for more than a decade.

Fire Commission President William Celentano said he was “concerned” with the test and that he knew lot of qualified candidates who “got washed out” in the oral exam.

Smuts said the “best of the best” were ranked as a result of the testing process.

Egan, Celentano and a few others all testified regarding the agility test as well. They claim the CWH agility test was not rigorous enough and that the CPAT standards should have been followed.

The commission certified the list of 195 recruits who passed all three portions of the exam back in May but no further steps have been taken.

Smuts said he agrees with the choice his predecessor made but that if it was he making the decision he would have taken more time to decide and been better about communicating the testing standards to all involved.