Hermosa Beach Civil Service Board approves revisions to four job classifications with minor edits to be finalized

The Hermosa Beach Civil Service Board voted Dec. 1 to approve staff-recommended revisions to four job classifications — police sergeant, police lieutenant, equipment mechanic and senior engineer — with a motion that listed typographical edits and one wording substitution to be included in the motion text.

Tiffany Nguyen, the city’s human resources manager, told the board the updates were proposed by departments and reviewed with employee associations to make class specifications reflect current duties and recruitment experience. Nguyen said the changes follow recent recruitments and are intended to ensure job duties and qualification language are accurate.

Board members questioned several specific items. A clarification was added to the police sergeant specification to note that at least one year of service with the Hermosa Beach Police Department is intended for internal promotion; Nguyen said protected leaves would count as service. Members also requested that staff spell out acronyms such as ASE for equipment mechanic certifications and expand references to POST for police supervisory certification; Nguyen agreed to make those editorial clarifications.

Some members proposed replacing the word 'citizens' with 'community members' in duty descriptions to be more inclusive. Staff and the board agreed the change is substantive and should be enumerated in the motion so the final, amended text can be recorded at approval. Staff said editorial corrections (spelling, punctuation, and acronym expansions) could be made without returning to the board, but substantive wording changes would be brought back as a final draft if the board preferred.

A motion to approve the staff recommendations 'with the typographical changes discussed' and to substitute 'community member' for 'citizen' in the police sergeant responsibilities passed by voice vote: Members Ellman, Wolf, Williams and Jones voted yes; Member Collins abstained.

The board did not receive any public comment on the item. Nguyen said the city will update the documents to reflect the edits discussed and return any substantive revisions for formal adoption, consistent with the board’s role in approving legally binding classification language.