Board seeks police-hiring redo

Fort Smith urges panel to open supervisory jobs to outsiders

FORT SMITH — By a 4-3 vote Tuesday, city directors passed a resolution urging the Civil Service Commission to change its rules to allow the Police Department to accept applications for supervisory positions from outside the department.

Voting for the resolution were Directors Keith Lau, Andre Good, Mike Lorenz and Tracy Pennartz. Directors George Catsavis, Kevin Settle and Don Hutchings voted against it.

With the support of City Administrator Carl Geffken, Police Chief Nathaniel Clark proposed amendments to Section 12 of the commission’s rules to allow nonmembers of the department to apply for sergeant, captain and major positions.

During a May 22 meeting, the commission discussed but didn’t make a motion to vote on Clark’s proposal for the rule change.

Commission Chairman Chip Sexton declined to comment before the vote Tuesday on what the commission would do if directors passed the resolution.

Settle said he was worried officers would see their opportunity for promotions diminished.

The first paragraph of the resolution also talked about a workforce that reflects Fort Smith’s demographics, not increasing diversity among city employees, Settle said.

“We need to remove barriers [to diversity], but this is not the way,” Hutchings said.

Lorenz said accepting applicants from outside the department would enlarge the job pool to draw high-quality candidates.

During the May 22 commission meeting, Sexton said he was concerned about hiring officers who weren’t familiar with Fort Smith geography and Arkansas law.

After hearing public comments, Sexton on May 22 said he opposed changing the rules but would consider a rule allowing applicants from outside the department if there were three or fewer applications from officers inside the department for a position.

According to the meeting’s minutes, Fort Smith Fraternal Order of Police attorney Candice Settle said the practice was being used in Maumelle and Fayetteville.

Mark Hallum, representing the Fort Smith Fraternal Order of Police on Tuesday, said no large Arkansas city other than Fayetteville allows outsiders to apply for supervisory positions within its police department. That includes the Arkansas State Police, he said.

Clark has said accepting applicants from outside the department would produce the best and most qualified persons to serve in the positions. He said the requested changes were not meant to hurt current officers in the department but were meant to benefit Fort Smith residents.

Geffken said before Tuesday’s meeting that the proposed change also sought to increase diversity within the department by opening it to more women and people with disabilities.

“We want our city government to reflect the population of the city,” he said.

Commissioner Charlotte Tidwell said May 22 that competition was good and the department needed

“We want our city government to reflect the population of the city.”

— City Administrator Carl Geffken

more diversity, which would not improve if the pool of candidates was limited.

The Fort Smith Fraternal Order of Police opposed the proposed change. A resolution signed by chapter President Anthony Parkinson on May 17 said the change would be unfair to officers who had already met the requirements for becoming a Fort Smith police officer and who know the community as well as city and state laws.

According to the proposed revision of Section 12 submitted to the commission, the Fort Smith police would accept applications from employees of other police departments, civilians and the military.

Candidates would be required to have completed a basic college course in law enforcement. They would have to obtain all required certifications to be a law enforcement officer in Arkansas, and they would have to consent to the release of their personnel files from their former or current employers.

They also would be evaluated and tested under the same procedures and criteria as internal applicants, would have to have served a certain number of years as an officer and supervisor to be eligible, and, if selected, would have to serve a 12-month probationary period.