By Donna Porstner
Staff Writer
June 8, 2006
STAMFORD -- Three months after adopting new hiring procedures to instill public confidence in the hiring of city firefighters, the Fire Commission is releasing interview scores only to applicants who request them.
The new hiring policy, approved in March, requires commissioners to rate firefighter applicants on a scale of 1 to 10 during the oral interview, weighing each candidate's ability to express himself, courage, confidence, preparation for the position, ability to take orders, desire for the position, education, work history and availability.
At the time, Fire Commission Chairman Dick Lyons said the scores would be available should any applicant question the hiring.
Yesterday, he said only applicants will be shown their scores.
"If they request them, I'll send them," Lyons said.
The Advocate's request to see the oral interview scoring sheets was denied yesterday.
Michael Toma, the city attorney advising the commission of its obligations under state law, said applicants may see their own scores but no one else's.
The Fire Commission is not required to disclose such scores to the public, he said, citing two cases in which the state's Freedom of Information Commission ruled against people seeking similar documents from job interviews.
Toma said he is not certain the Fire Commission must give the scores to applicants. He did not research the issue because Lyons planned to release them.
The Advocate has filed a complaint about the decision with the Freedom of Information Commission.
Although certain hiring records are exempt from disclosure, including test questions, it does not mean they cannot be disclosed. The Advocate obtained the same applicants' scores on the written exam given in August through a Freedom of Information request.
The Fire Commission used the scores from oral interviews to decide which of the nearly 120 applicants would be picked for 12 entry-level firefighter openings Monday night. Lyons had said the interview would be the most important factor.
Three of the applicants were selected from the first rank, or tier, meaning they had the highest scores on the written exam. Seven were chosen from the second tier, and two were selected from the third, or lowest tier.
The commission's deliberations took place in a closed-door executive session from which the public was barred from attending.
In an interview yesterday, fire commissioner Marilyn Dussault said she and the two other commissioners present -- Lyons and Ralph Murray -- went through the list of applicants alphabetically, comparing interview scores. Their resumes, written exam scores and interview performance were all part of the discussion, she said.
Dussault said she has become increasingly concerned with the city's ability to handle a terrorist attack since Sept. 11, 2001, and was looking for applicants who live in Stamford and can respond quickly during an emergency. She also looked for applicants with relevant experience, whether it was on the job at another department, as a volunteer firefighter or in college.
The commission also asked which other fire departments applicants have applied to and whether they would take their names off those hiring lists if offered jobs in Stamford.
"You're looking for two things: people who are going to do well at the academy and make good firefighters and people who are going to stay, because training a firefighter is very, very expensive," Dussault said.
But Dussault said she wonders whether the city is using the best test available, pointing out that there is an inverse relationship between the applicant's experience and score. Some applicants are retired from firefighting jobs in other departments and have 20 years' experience, yet performed worse than those with no real-life experience, she said.
"I thought it was interesting, the more experienced, the more seasoned the firefighter, the lower the score," she said. "I just didn't understand that."
Dussault said the city should explore other ways to test applicants when the next written exam is given in about two years.
Lyons said the two applicants selected from the third tier were chosen because of their relevant experience. One is a firefighter and emergency medical technician, and the other has experience in emergency dispatch, he said.
Sixty-nine applicants scored higher than Jonathan Brenes on the written exam; 107 scored higher than Robert Procaccini.
Before the commission adopted the new hiring policy in March, the process was much more informal. Nothing in writing said how commissioners should rate each candidate, and though some commissioners took notes during the interviews, such a record was not required. Members who took notes did not always retain the information.
City Director of Human Resources Dennis Murphy suggested the Fire Commission devise a rating system to evaluate all candidates using the same criteria in January after The Advocate reported applicants who scored high on the written exam but were not offered jobs were questioning the process.
When asked how the mayor's nephew, the fire chief's son and the son of fire Commissioner E. Gaynor Brennan made the list of alternates next in line for job openings, the commission could not produce any records showing how candidates were evaluated. There also was no record of how members voted, which is required by law. The minutes of the meeting where the hiring decisions were made in November said only that the four firefighters hired and the eight alternates named were selected "after two days of interviewing and lengthy discussion."
The commission subsequently decided to throw out the list of alternates and reinterview all of the nearly 120 candidates. The four firefighters already hired kept their jobs.
Although the commissioners have maintained that they did nothing wrong, they said it was necessary to start over to defend the integrity of the process.
Dussault said yesterday the new hiring procedures are not that different from when she joined the commission 10 years ago. She said she spent a weekend reviewing applicants' resumes, exam scores and her notes from their interviews to prepare for the vote Monday night. Dussault said she always took notes and kept them for awhile, but no one ever asked to see them.
Though she said the criticism of the commission was unwarranted, she said there is always room for improvement.
"I do take umbrage with being attacked, but I think the outcome is OK," she said.
Copyright © 2006, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.