Personnel Board - Regular Meeting

Brian, sorry. Steve Clita, are you here? Rita, Brian, we have Brian Snider here. Joe Wall, Amy Wespan, I'm here. Yes. Okay. Thanks, Matt Shipley. All in attendance. So, the uh town measel board for August 26, 2025 is now in order. Uh are there any public comments on the agenda items? Do we have any public uh attending? No, sir, not online.

All right. So, let's uh move to approval of uh previous meetings minutes. Is there anything uh anybody' like to discuss? I'd like to um under the old business eligility list, second bullet, go down to not to certify the list. Is that is that meant to be in there? the second I mean appear on the original list not to certify the list.

Yeah. So if you want to amend those minutes that uh second bullet point should say uh Rita Martin made a motion to ratify the list presented on August 27th 2024 and to amend the list according to the chief's recommendation to not certify three candidates that appeared on the original list. period motion and Brian Snder and Eric Fischer abstain. So you just remove that little sentence that says not to certify the list. I think that was just left from a cut and paste. Yeah, that's what I figured too. So do we need to uh vote on that or is that just you would approve the minutes as amended? Okay. So all uh do I have a motion to approve the minutes? Motion.

Second. Second. And all in favor say I. I. I those in favor nay. So the meeting minutes have been approved as amended. So going on to uh new business certification of eligible list. John Schwen will explain the process they went through to come up with this list that we have before us. I assume that um that uh Rita you have one and so do you. Yes. Brian. Yes. Okay. Good

how to turn the volume down on the speakers in the room here. Please see that close the door.

Okay, I'm here. Turn them up a little bit. We need to hear them a little bit.

That's about midway from Okay. So, if I could review uh how this went and I'd like to compliment the chief and panel of chiefs who we had help us with the forum interview process. Uh the process was very smooth. Uh I'll give you a summary from the beginning until now. uh from the date that the application period closed, we received 15 applicants uh for our police position, significantly lower than we've had in the past. It's a you know, it's a sign of uh the state of the industry right now, but you know, it also is uh we're competing against a number of other police departments who have positions available right now. Also,

from the time that the applications closed until the day we did the test, three of those 15 had already taken other jobs. So, our list was down to 12 folks who could show up and take the physical agility test and who could take our written test. Out of those 12, only nine came. Out of those nine, only eight passed the physical agility test. So we did lose one candidate uh during the physical agility and then we uh the written test to the remaining eight applicants. Those eight applicants all received a passing score of at least 70%. So therefore they were all eligible for an interview uh for the oral interview. At the oral interview a panel of three chiefs were selected and you see their names in front of you. Chief Frlaci and Chief Leech. Uh these three chiefs met uh Chief Hawk, Lieutenant Edgley and myself did witness the interviews in the back of the room. However, we did not participate in the interview process. A very thorough set of 10 questions was uh devised and issued by each of the chiefs. They rotated how they went around the room and asked questions and ask follow-ups to see the questions really drew a lot of thought out of the applicants. They were about, you know, not only their personalities and how they handle certain situations, but their knowledge on laws, their knowledge on the difference between training and standard operating procedures and a couple questions really drew out kind of some ethical dilemmas and how they handle I want to compliment the the question writers. You did that.

Thank you. As you can see through that oral interview score, we did have one applicant not attained the minimum score of 70%. We had a 57. Uh this applicant has applied here in the past and had actually not passed the interview with our personnel board in the past also. So it was interesting to see that that was consistent at least uh you know he had failed an oral interview here before. So we do have a list of seven candidates who are eligible to be hired and they are weighted with their weighted scores in order with the veterans preference points added. So we made a spreadsheet that calculated just based on the waiting and I'm more than happy to answer any questions you would have about that waiting system and we're extending that duty personnel board is to ask any questions you have about how we arrived with the scores and then to certify the seven candidates who have met the minimum requirement to be eligible to be on our list.

Now we want to make sure we don't say any names um that are on this list. Correct. This list this list will be public record. Okay. So, you know, will be posted correctly if I'm wrong. Yeah. The names will be public. Yeah. The names associated with scores and ranking all that kind of stuff. Yeah, that's that's correct. But this is an open form. I just want to make sure that can you share what departments the other three chiefs were from?

Certainly. Uh, we had Chief Aaron Leech from the Franklin Park Police Department. We had Chief Steve Kucci from the Indiana Township Police Department. He's retiring any day now. And we had Chief and Manager Bruce from Westboro. And I thought that the process was very smooth to this point. And I think chief did very well. Yeah. Those questions spot on as well.

Can I ask a question please? None of these men who are on the list worked in any of those departments. Correct. Correct. Was the written score. Can you tell me how the written score was determined? They we've had a third party company. It's the post testing company. I purchased the tests from them. It's a Stantron system. I'm sorry, wrong. I asked a wrong question. Can you tell me how the interview score was determined?

Oral interview score. 10 questions, 10 points each. Each chief had therefore 100 points. And if you add those up uh and divide by three, so it was basically out of 300 divide by three. That's how you get to 300. Did the applicants know the questions in advance? They did not.

The applicants came uh they had a variety of preparation. A few had resumes they hand out. Uh a few questions, but a few had a few thoughtful questions, some did not. But no, they had no knowledge of questions. So in other words, they for each question they either got a point or didn't get a point. Is that correct? 10. So if I ask you question, tell me how you would release this certain situation. Each team gave them a one through 10 score. Okay. On that question, 10 questions later,

you know, if you were the panel of three, you would have each had a score out of 100 and you add them up and divide and that's how you get that. So there was no discussion amongst the chiefs about the candidates. It was all done individually, individual scoring and then at the end they added together and and honestly I don't think they added them all together at the end and signed until the very end of the last candidate. We had one candidate who had to come a second day wasn't the first day. So, the scoring wasn't complete until we finished. Could the candidates get, for lack of a better phrase, extra credit for the questions they asked afterward?

We just wanted, you know, to give them any answers they had, you know, if there were opportunities in our police department, how the process worked, so we could talk through with them. Really only pick two out of the eight asked any followup questions. I had a question just this is my first time going through this as a member of this board. The the veterans points, can you explain what would be necessary for a candidate to receive those? Honorable discharge from any armed service. Okay. It's 10 point uh 10 point that gets added to the score at the end.

Okay. Thank you. We follow that statute. So that's that's appreciate it. Thank you.

Any other questions on the in the process? So the column missing is the total score with the veterans points for everyone. Well, I guess you would just say no. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. Got it.

Oh, so they are ranked top to bottom. Okay. You can see how the raw scores would be there without the veterans points. But we do have to follow that regulation. Yeah. Now tell us how we proceed from here.

So that your your job is basically to see this list and you're going to put the certification of the board on it. So that means you reviewed it and you're confident in the process that we provided to ask enough questions to make sure properly these scores are valid. Once you certify that list, our duty is to notify the candidates where they fall in that first of all that they passed or failed and number two where they fall in that order. From that point forward, you know, we have a eligibility list is created in the top three. That's where you need to make your first hire from. Background checks would begin to be conducted by our detectives. We do that in house very thorough and I'm sure Ryan could talk more about that process wanted to know how the background check process works assuming all those candidates uh meet the requirements of that background check then you know the hiring would take place from that group of three for your first officer selected then there's a new group of three for the second offic you selected because you take one out somebody else moves up and you can choose from there

how many officers are we Yes.

So, we currently have the opening for two. We have two vacancies which we've had virtually all week. So, he's been running a short staff the entire year. If we have a good candidate pool here, I think pending how the uh background checks go, uh we may be in the position that I would recommend to council to hire three based on few folks we have in a drop program who are going to drop within 2026. if you know it doesn't shake out the way you know let's say that we decide council says well we only want to do two right now that's fine the list is active for six months and anybody would retire we could time or we'd have to do the process benefit of the six month list is it gives us flexibility to either keep it and extend it another six months if we want or to be able to offer the testing process again if let's say we thought that market conditions changed the academy Who decides, excuse me, who decides if it uh if we do another six months on the list? Is that something that the board will decide? Not us, but council. Yes. Okay. Thank you.

One of the benefits to the way we did this process is we're very speedy. We were expeditious. Yes. Yes. in a position where if this list gets certified tonight, which I hope it will, and our detectives uh move swiftly and efficiently on these background checks, we could be in a position to offer jobs to the candidates at September 22nd council, which means the entire process will take us about less than 90 days. I think that's pretty quick. That's important in order to get awesome. Yes. other police departments right now. Sounds good.

So, it's it's a deep dive, you know, uh we on their application that they're providing previous employment for the past 10 or more 10 years at least, previous addresses, current addresses. So the detectives will go out and we'll have officers here in house as well call the previous employers uh the current employer um some you know ask some some questions that uh you know would reveal whether or not they were you know a good employee if there was any kind of problems hopefully that would come out in that process. We will endeavor to get personnel files from a current police department if they're employed, you know, elsewhere. Uh so we can see if there's a disciplinary history, any any good things in that um in that jacket, you know, um training. Uh we go to their current and you know, as many past neighborhoods that they lived in and we interview neighbors. Obviously, they all uh provide I think it's three or more references. We'll call the references. I anticipate those will all be positive, but they haven't always been in my career. I know I've knocked on a door or two or call a reference and they were like, but you know, uh, we have our detectives do what they can as far as looking at their financial background as well. Uh, we have the detectives check their social media websites, see what kind of postings they do and such. um if they get to the point where that they're are finals for council's consideration uh and we believe we will offer conditional offer we offer that conditional offer you know what I'm saying uh they will also be subject to a psychological evaluation and a doctor's physical they've already done the physical agility that was the very first step

chief when you uh do the um investigation after it's done. Who knocks them out? You do. Uh the board does. Who knocks them out if they if they are uh found to be, you know, suspect? So, if there's a problem in the background, I would say in consultation with the manager and the solicitor and you know, council's blessing, it would they would be uh ineligible to proceed further would be uh disqualified. Rita probably officially by is it town council? Well, we kind of don't we do that

come back to this with the recommendation in some there you go Rita it would it would eventually end in your lap probably Rita. Okay wondering thank you. Is there a plan to um promote I know we have some gaps in leadership in the department as well. Is there a plan down the road to do some promotions which would potentially open up other we have a sergeants process underway where officers eight of them are studying right now for a written exam that I think is wow mid October. Okay.

Yeah. So you'll see they won't open up any new slots because these folks will fill those existing slots. Uh but what right now we're just running with Lieutenant Chevy is acting as a sergeant. He hasn't been moved up. He hasn't really like taken on his lieutenant duties yet. So once we get a new sergeant from our list, which you'll see this whole process again come before you in a couple months. It's probably going to be about Octoberish. Uh you'll have to review this again for the sergeant process to get a written test. to get oral interview. You'll have to certify us that so you'll see that coming in front of you pretty shortly too. Okay.

A few of the folks in the drop are sergeants. So as they would move out some of these candidates who are testing for sergeant will see opportunities to fix and whenever that sergeant is that eligibility list for promotion to sergeant is finalized. I know for sure one with Trevor's elevation to lieutenant we need to replace him and then there's a potential for another sergeant who I think intends to retire in the spring. So we might if the list is, you know, viable one, we might be able to promote two off of that list. That'll be for counsel.

Have they already done the written test for the sergeant? That's going to be October. Amy, right now they're in a study period. There's there's quite a few uh m there's a lot of material for them to study. Y

are there any other questions? Would somebody like to make a motion to uh approve this list? Uh I'll make a motion to approve uh the list of eligibility as presented. Second. All in favor? I. Those opposed? Nay. Motion pass. All right. So There's uh nobody joined from the public. Double check that. No sir. All right. Can I get a motion to adjourn?

So move. Second. Second. All in favor? I those opposed. The motion passed. We now now adjourn the meeting and go ahead and stop recording.