The city’s charter now dictates a Rule of One hiring practice, meaning the city must hire candidates one by one based on the best civil service exam scores.
Non-chartered cities in Ohio and others are allowed to use a Rule of 10 procedure, allowing them to take a group of the 10 best-scoring candidates and pick the best applicants from that pool.
“It would definitely help our problem if we could figure out a way to hire more minorities that are qualified to be police officers,” Lovelace said. “We have to do whatever is in our power to make sure our police and fire crews better reflect our community.”
The city’s law department has drafted some language for the charter change, but it’s not ready for commissioners’ approval, which must happen before it’s put on the ballot.
Police union president Randy Beane said both police and fire unions are against the hiring change.
“The person who scores highest on the test is the person should be hired,” Beane said.
More than 3,500 — a record number — of applications were received for the positions, but the same percentage of blacks applied as whites compared to previous years. More than 1,000 took the test on Saturday.
That lowers the odds the city can hire more minorities than in years’ past.
“I will bet money the results will be no different than previous years even after the city has done all this,” Beane said. “This is a giant waste of taxpayer money because in order to diversify we have to get into the schools and get kids interested when they are young.”
The city must hire a more diverse group of recruits to satisfy the U.S. Department of Justice or the federal government could halt the process. That would throw a huge wrench in the city’s need to hire at least two dozen officers to replace those retiring in 2011.
The DOJ has forced the city, through a lawsuit settlement, to redo its civil service exam, saying the previous tests had a negative impact on the city’s ability to hire minorities. The city’s Civil Service Board also announced it will grade the tests on a curve, a process that must be approved by the DOJ.
Recruiting experts agree with Beane and say Dayton and many other large departments across the country have to show they are serious about diversity and ramp up recruiting efforts.
“Police departments keep doing the same things when it comes to recruiting and they keep getting the same results,” University of Dayton criminal justice professor Tim Apolito said. “You know the definition of insanity, right? Departments like Dayton over time need to nurture interest in becoming police officers among minorities. It can’t be done with a short-term program.”
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