City officials pitched a plan Monday to change how promotions are doled out for New Orleans police and firefighters, placing less emphasis on formal test scores while creating a new selection group whose members are chosen by the city’s chief administrative office.
Critics, particularly among local union representatives, were quick to frame the proposed rule changes as a gateway for possible abuse, potentially allowing department heads to cherry-pick candidates rather than basing promotions on merit alone. Officials, including the city’s fire and police chiefs, sought to assure that would not be the case and promised to work with unions as the proposals undergo revisions in the coming months.
Presented at a city Civil Service Commission meeting Monday, the proposed changes center on forming a “promotion committee” that ranks police and fire candidates seeking higher positions and sets the criteria on which those candidates are evaluated. Equal weight would be given when picking promotions to the committee’s recommendations and to scores on a Civil Service-approved skills exam, which for many years has been the primary basis for selecting candidates.
The proposed changes come after a state appeals court ruled the fire department improperly denied promotions to 15 firefighters vying for the rank of captain in late 2016, in large part due to selection criteria Civil Service had not approved. Those firefighters argued they were passed over for promotions while other candidates who scored lower on the skills exam were picked, and that they were given no reason for why they were not chosen.
On Monday, officials from city CAO Gilbert Montaño’s office said the proposed changes would give department heads more promotional leeway rather than having to rely solely on exam scores, while also making at least half of the final consideration based on those scores.
Fire Chief Tim McConnell, NOPD Superintendent Shaun Ferguson and city Homeland Security Director Terry Ebert all said the rule changes would help fix what they view as a flawed promotional system hamstrung by the exam scores.
“I think this is about as close as we’re going to get to being as fair as possible across the board,” Ferguson said at Monday’s meeting.
The city’s proposal would also bar department heads from promoting employees "for reasons that have no rational relationship to the employee’s merit or fitness for the position to which he or she is being promoted.”
Opponents, however, cast the proposals as a potential power grab by Mayor LaToya Cantrell and argued more harm would be done than good. They especially criticized the sway the CAO’s office would have in deciding promotions, arguing such influence would make police and fire promotional practices even more unconstitutional than they currently may be.
“What we need to do is have a system that has faith and confidence in the test ... as relevant, fair and comprehensive,” said Michael Glasser, president of the Police Association of New Orleans.
The issue dates back to summer 2014, when then-Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration pushed a package of promotion and hiring rule changes ultimately adopted by the Civil Service Commission that loosened the stress test for how candidates can be picked. The 2014 changes scrapped a complex formula for grouping candidates who scored top marks on the skills exam and simply ranked them on a list from top-scoring to bottom.
A final decision on whether to adopt the rule changes is up to the Civil Service Commission. They urged city officials and opposing groups to hash out an agreement before bringing any proposal back for formal approval.
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