Chief Leader

Thomas Patitucci, Assistant Commissioner of Examinations for the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, told a City Council committee at a Sept. 20 hearing that it's not something the agency is actively contemplating at the moment.

But if the number of applications doesn't significantly increase, an extension would be considered, he said.

Expect Late Rush

"Experience teaches us that most come in during the last week of the filing period," he told Miguel Martinez, chair of the Committee on Fire and Criminal Justice Services. Fire Department and DCAS officials refused to specify how many applications had been received already, calling the number "too low" to be meaningful.

Councilman Martinez told The Chief-Leader after the hearing that he hoped to keep tabs on the application process.

"We want to monitor the applications and how many are coming in from people of color," he said. "We want to get the administration to get [DCAS] to come in and agree to extend the deadline for applications if we don't get the [number] we need."

The FDNY is working from a database of 39,000 potential candidates who expressed interest in becoming Firefighters during the department's $1.4-million recruitment drive and media campaign over the summer.

More than 40 percent of the respondents are black, FDNY officials said, and approximately 22 percent are women.

Michele Maglione, Director of the FDNY Recruitment and Diversity Unit, said the department had contacted nearly 16,000 interested people and continued to make thousands of calls each week.

"The FDNY's goal is to significantly increase the number of men and women of diverse backgrounds on the Firefighter civil service list," she told Mr. Martinez. "Never in its history has the FDNY been able to devote so many resources to our recruiting efforts. This enhanced recruiting capacity enables us to conduct the kind of outreach that we feel we need to [do] at thousands of events in targeted communities throughout the city."

The city, facing a U.S. Department of Justice probe into allegations of discrimination regarding FDNY hiring practices, recently took steps to ease the job requirements in an effort to diversify a work force that's 91 percent white and 99 percent male.

It slashed the college credit requirement from 30 credits to 15. It's also willing to waive the requirement for applicants with at least six months' military service with honorable discharge or six months' full-time work experience.

'Spell Out Deadline'

Mr. Martinez acknowledged the FDNY's efforts to improve its diversity, but he questioned why the print ads it placed didn't clearly state the closing date for application submissions.

"None have the deadline - the filing deadline for the application - and that's concerning," said Councilman Martinez, flipping through a stack of ad copies submitted by the FDNY.

The ads were placed before the filing deadline was set, officials responded. New ads highlighting the date will be sent out shortly, they said.

Mr. Martinez, who represents Washington Heights, Inwood and Marble Hill, said he visited three neighborhood firehouses and asked for information on how to apply.

Not Much to Work With

"Every time I knocked on the door and asked for an application, I was told by the firefighters that they didn't have any," he said. "They also told me that they'd never been given any. I also didn't see any posters up around the neighborhoods."

Applications were given to approximately 150 firehouses around the city, said Ms. Maglione. She said the FDNY would hand out more.

Vulcan Society President Paul Washington, an FDNY Captain and longtime critic of the department's hiring practices, said he was pleased with the initial results of the recruitment drive. He noted that in 2002 the FDNY amassed a database of only 23,000 potential candidates.

"But the big test of how well the recruitment did will be on Oct. 13, when we see how many people actually applied, and get information on the percentage of blacks, women and people of color," he commented.

UFA Concurs

Uniformed Firefighters' Association Vice President James Slevin agreed with Mr. Washington's assessment, noting that "there is not a greater representation of minorities in the FDNY [in part because] there are not enough minorities that register for and actually take the exam."

The real measure of success, he stressed, will be the number of minorities who apply, and show up for the written test slated for January 2007. The UFA official reiterated its desire that the FDNY recruit more actively from the military, which has physically fit men and women and a high percentage of minorities to draw from. Mr. Slevin said the union asked the FDNY to administer exams at military bases like the Police Department does on occasion, but was rebuffed.

FDNY officials have said that the department doesn't need to spend money on the expensive process of outside testing, preferring instead to target local communities.

'Not Doing Enough'

Mr. Slevin contended that those efforts weren't enough. "Until this procedure is put in place, the UFA can't say with confidence that the Fire Department is doing everything possible to recruit more female and minority members," he said.

He later commented that the starting salary for Firefighters - $25,100 for 13 weeks of firefighting training before jumping to $32,700 - could be a factor in the low response DCAS reported.

The Uniformed Fire Officers' Association submitted testimony in favor of using the Candidate Physical Ability Test in place of the FDNY's current physical exam. CPAT was developed in conjunction with the International Association of Firefighters, the International Associations of Fire Chiefs, the DOJ, more than 200 firefighting officials from leading Fire Departments across the country, and union representatives.

'Good Way to Evaluate'

Lieut. Edward Boles, the UFOA's Lieutenants' representative, told the committee that CPAT is a "content-valid test in which candidates simply perform tasks designed to parallel routine firefighter job tasks. This is a neutral means of evaluating a candidate's eligibility."

The CPAT exam is graded as a pass/fail and it "directly correlates with the day-today tasks of a firefighter," said Mr. Boles.

He added that while the UFOA welcomed diversity in the FDNY, it also had strong feelings about preserving the civil service merit system.