Albany looks to diversify recruits

The city is making a push to increase both the size and diversity of its next classes of police and fire department recruits.

The efforts have been complicated by the coronavirus pandemic, forcing both departments to take some unconventional approaches to advertising and recruiting, as well as how they prepare potential candidates for the hiring process.

The fire department, the second-biggest department in the city in terms of expenses with a $36 million budget, has escaped some of the scrutiny the police department has received for its lack of diversity in the past. The police department’s budget tops $55 million.

Last year, the only minority supervising

officer in the Albany Fire Department sued the city after it rescinded a promotion over a dispute whether the officer was drunk during an off-duty incident. And the department’s first female deputy chief, Maria Walker, left the department in 2019 after a 30-year career to take a position at Hudson Valley Community College.

Still, the department has made efforts in recent years to boost the existing numbers of women and people of color in its ranks.

Chief Joe Gregory said this year when the department reached out to area businesses, such as local car dealerships, to asks about posting recruitment signs at their establishments, they were met with enthusiasm.

“I think it’s a great effort on the part of the city, but also I think it shows the community spirit,” he said emphasizing the importance of community partners in getting the word out.

“It’s critical to get a good, diversified group of candidates to take our exam to represent our fire department,” he said.

The department also leaned on social media and billboards to advertise, as well as hosting virtual open houses to answer recruiting questions.

The heavier recruiting push paid off in terms of raw numbers. At the deadline last month, the city had 519 applicants for the fire fighter civil service test, compared to 405 in 2017.

The city’s efforts to track the success of its efforts to create a more diverse applicant pool is hampered by the fact that the civil service tests do not collect demographic information. The city has asked applicants to voluntarily include that information but not all applicants do.

Of those who showed up to the firefighter test in 2017, about 29 percent were people of color.

The department hired a new class of 12 firefighters on March 26, including several men of color, according to the city. Mayor Kathy Sheehan pointed to that as a sign that the city’s efforts to reach out to a wider pool of applicants can pay off.

“I think one of the things that that demonstrates is if we get a diverse pool of candidates applying, we get a more diverse pool of candidates getting hired,” she said.

The emphasis on diversity within the city’s police department became more pronounced within the last year after protests against police brutality and racism ignited nationwide when a white police officer killing George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, in Minnesota, and video of the incident ricocheted across the globe. Subsequently, New York mandated law enforcement reform.

The city’s police department deadline to apply for the civil service test is April 12.

Police Chief Eric Hawkins acknowledged the department’s difficulties in the current environment around policing make it harder to recruit new officers. But he sees opportunities for those who want to make a difference in the city’s approach to policing.

“There’s some exciting reform ideas and exciting ideas that have come up to make this police department more responsive to the community, to make us more effective and efficient,” he said.

Today’s climate mirrors the one he experienced when he first was hired as a police officer in Michigan, Hawkins said. It was after the riots sparked when four Los Angeles police officers, three of them white, were acquitted in the brutal 1991 beating of Rodney King, which was caught on video. Police departments across the country at that time were also under pressure to change how they operated.

“A lot of the same types of frustrations and anger and disconnects between the police in certain communities that we have in our cities were the same back then as they are now,” he said. “We have people who aren’t talking to each other ... and people who were retreating to their corners and their different perspectives and they don’t want it to really discuss it.”

The department is short 34 officers and roughly 20 more aren’t available for a variety of reasons, such as medical or military leave. And a large number of officers become eligible for retirement later this year, according to the police officers union.

“It’s imperative that we do what we can to fill these vacancies so that we can better serve the community,” Hawkins said.

The department started a committee tasked with examining its own diversity and equity efforts when it comes to recruiting new officers. And it has been heavily pushing its recruitment message in traditional and social media channels. Many of those television pieces and department-produced advertisements focus on officers of color.

After the class planned for June, the department is hoping to hire as many as 50 additional recruits early next year. The department has also built a new training academy on Washington Avenue Extension which will allow it to train larger classes than it has in the past.

But first, it needs the recruits to fill those classrooms and it is casting a wide net to find them.

“We have real concerns, not just with respect to diversity but with respect to the challenges around recruiting police officers in the current environment,” Sheehan said.

The city has not lacked people interested in taking the civil-service test in past years. In 2017, 628 people applied to take the test. That number rose to 874 in 2019. But only a portion of those who apply shows up to take the test. And both police and fire recruits must pass background checks along with physical, medical and psychological exams.

As of March 30, 446 people had applied for the police officer test.

The city police department also has a cadet program, a pilot program of four city residents that were hired in December on a part-time basis with the goal of preparing them for the police academy and jobs in the department.

The city is also encouraging other city employees, such as those in the emergency dispatch center, to take the police officer exam as well. The department also would like people in the community to refer people they think might make good officers, Hawkins said.

Sheehan acknowledged she had heard skepticism from activists and community organizers about whether city residents could change the police department by joining it. She said she understood that thinking and that it was the city’s responsibility to prove through its own reform process that it is serious about living up to those expectations.

“I think it cuts both ways, I think there is definitely innovation that’s happening within the police department and it’s a really exciting time to be joining this department,” she said. “And I think that it is a place for people who want to be part of changing the perceptions that exist within the police department.”