Firefighters Retake Job Test

About 80 members of the Los Angeles Fire Department had to retake a portion of the captain-II promotional exam last week because authorities feared there had been potential for cheating the first time around, officials announced Monday.

Meanwhile, the widely discussed captains’ exam is being delayed again for further review because representatives of various minority groups within the Fire Department believe that they have not had enough review.

“We’re trying to make what you know more important than who you know,” said Jackie Goldberg, head of the City Council’s Personnel Committee, which decided Monday to approve the new battalion chiefs’ test but send the captains’ exam back for more work.

Fire Chief Bill Bamattre said the new captains’ exam probably will include a written, multiple-choice test (30% of overall score); a “practical” test of candidates’ ability to respond to actual situations (40%), and an oral interview (30%). The previous test was half written, half oral, and was criticized by a scathing audit that found racism and sexism pervading the Fire Department’s promotion process, including the test interviews.

David Spence, president of the black firefighters’ group Stentorians, told the personnel committee that he and others had not had a promised meeting with Bamattre on the revamped exam, and suggested that the written portion be pass-fail rather than given a specific score.

Monday’s delay outraged Ken Buzzell, president of the firefighters union.

“All the issues have been flushed out--now they want to go back and reinvent the wheel,” he said in an interview after the hearing.

Bamattre said the new captains’ exam would be ready by October.

Delays also have plagued promotions to captain-II, which were originally scheduled for January but canceled at the last minute.

When the new tests were given at the end of May, at least four candidates removed test booklets containing written instructions from the secured area where they were to be reviewed, the chief said.

Although an investigation into the matter failed to turn up any intentional wrongdoing, Bamattre said, the department was unable to determine who might have received advance notice of the questions, and therefore invalidated the entire group’s oral exams.