Civil Service Commission briefs Denver council on new Denver-specific entry test, recruitment progress and diversity gaps

The Civil Service Commission told the Denver City Council Safety, Housing, Education and Homelessness Committee on Tuesday that it has implemented a Denver-specific entry-level written exam through the National Testing Network and is seeing increased test completions and improved tracking across hiring steps, while continuing to monitor possible adverse impact and persistent gaps in Indigenous representation.

Gracie Bettis, executive director of the Civil Service Commission, told the committee that “we implemented a new Denver specific written exam, entry level written test, through the National Testing Network as of 01/01/2025.” She said the commission pulled year-to-date data in June and found higher applicant completion rates for the police written test compared with 2024 and fewer candidates leaving the process before taking the test.

The commission reported that it is about 6% shy of matching total police test completions from all of 2024, and that the number of candidates who registered but did not take the police entry test fell from 1,031 in 2024 to 752 year-to-date in 2025 — roughly a 27% reduction in non-completions by the commission’s calculation. The commission also raised the minimum passing score for the written elements from 65% to 80% in March to “raise the quality of candidates,” Bettis said, and has been monitoring the effect on demographic groups.

Bettis said the vendor recommended lowering the overall passing score back to 65% or, as an intermediate step, lowering the writing-element passing score to 75% to address possible adverse impact. She said the commission is instead pursuing multiple other remediation steps…