Supervisor: Strip county fire of hiring authority amid nepotism claims

A county supervisor is proposing to take hiring authority away from the Los Angeles County Fire Department following a Times investigation that found a disproportionate number of firefighters have family ties within the department.

Supervisor Gloria Molina wants to put the recruitment and hiring process in the hands of the county’s human resources department.

“Leadership and a culture of nepotism have tainted the fire department’s image,” Molina wrote in a memo to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. “Hiring processes must not be controlled by privilege and preference. The recruitment process and policies must attract all high-quality eligible applicants from a wide variety of backgrounds, including women and ethnic minorities.”

The department has also “failed to recruit and support female applicants and female firefighters,” Molina wrote, noting that women make up only 1.4% of the force.

Molina’s proposal is set to be discussed at Wednesday’s board meeting.

On Sunday, The Times reported that the department’s hiring, which is supposed to be based on merit, favored sons of firefighters. At least 183 sons of current or former firefighters have served in the department since the start of 2012, according to an analysis of payroll, pension, birth, marriage and other records.

The known number of sons accounts for nearly 7% of the county’s 2,750 firefighters. When brothers, nephews and other relatives are included, at least 370 firefighters — 13% of the department ranks — are related to someone now or previously on the force.

The Times also found evidence that insiders have tried to manipulate hiring. Lists of questions and suggested answers for the formal interviews of applicants have circulated freely through the department’s station houses, even though they are supposed to be kept under lock and key. The interviews determine whether and when applicants win a spot in the fire academy.

In the wake of the story, county investigators are examining five years of department emails to identify any employees who might have shared the confidential interview material with relatives or other people seeking firefighting jobs, which are prized for their six-figure salaries and generous benefits.

On Wednesday, Fire Chief Daryl Osby, who asked for the investigation, pledged to overhaul hiring procedures as a measure against nepotism and cheating. He said he intended to give outsiders a bigger role in evaluating job candidates but stopped short of proposing that the county personnel agency take over the process.

In addition, Osby said the written test for applicants would no longer be a pass-fail exam; at least a portion of it would be competitively scored and the grading done outside the department. He said that would help the agency identify the best candidates.

Osby’s plans also call for scrapping a department lottery that might have kept some of the most qualified applicants from being selected to take the written test.

The county department is one of the largest local fire agencies in the nation, and it draws applicants from across Southern California and beyond. Recruits can make more than $100,000 annually within a few years. After the firefighters retire, they receive yearly pension and health benefits that average more than $130,000.

Since 2007, more than 12,600 people have applied to the department. About 740 were hired. That’s 1 in 17 — a rejection rate of nearly 95%. If sons were hired at the same rate as other applicants, more than 3,000 of them -- an improbably high number -- would have had to apply to account for the 183 the analysis by The Times found in the ranks.

Osby and other department officials have said that sons could have a special motivation to work hard to follow in the fathers’ footsteps. But they have acknowledged that sons and other relatives should have no practical advantage over applicants without family ties.

During the hiring regimen, the department does not test candidates for firefighting skills they could have learned from relatives, such as deploying hoses and ladders, the officials said. Those are taught in the academy.

Follow Paul Pringle and Abby Sewell on Twitter at @PringleLATimes and @sewella.