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Alliance Civil Service Commission to re-score lieutenant exam after scoring dispute
Summary
After officers raised concerns that years-of-service and percentile points were applied inconsistently in promotional grading, the Alliance Civil Service Commission said it will re-score a lieutenant promotional exam and consult legal guidance following an executive session.
The Alliance Civil Service Commission said Aug. 19 that it will re-score a lieutenant promotional exam after members and an officer raised objections to how tenure and percentile points were applied to candidates' scores.
Officer Steve Minich told the commission that "we should be using the verbiage in our rules which says percentile points" and alleged that "past practice was broken twice," saying the board "gave 10 points instead of 7 and then you broke past practice again when you regraded it." Sergeant Jones said the calculation of service points was being applied from the hire date rather than the employee's anniversary date, arguing that "after 4 years of service, they are getting that 1 point and shouldn't be" and that the error affects the order of lieutenant results.
Commissioner Matt Mohr said the commission "applied the rules of the book with what we thought past practice was" and announced the commission will re-score the lieutenant's exam and seek guidance from the law director about how past practice should be interpreted going forward. Mohr also asked the police department to provide start dates rather than hire dates for service calculations.
The commission moved into executive session to consult legal counsel on protests related to promotional exams; the public record says legal counsel was consulted and a ruling was made on protests for the sergeant promotional exam during that session. Law Director Caity Weyer remained in the executive session and had distributed a handout from the George Macris FOP earlier in the meeting.
Commissioners also voted to table any amendments to the commission's rules until after the September meeting. The record shows the motions to enter executive session and to table amendments passed unanimously. The commission did not record a formal vote in the minutes to adopt any rule changes at the Aug. 19 meeting.
Next steps recorded in the meeting: the commission will re-score the lieutenant exam using the clarified guidance requested from legal counsel, obtain start-date data from the police department, and potentially hold a special meeting in early September to complete grading and issue letters once Clancy returns scantron scores.
