Transcripts For SFGTV 20130926

Included in this presentation also because we hired them for Police Service aids. Police service aids were hired in this fiscal year, their demographic and bilingual data is shown. Again, and the reason i asked the captain to put the psa 5 in here, some of the candidates for psa, we believe might make great Police Officers but there is something in their background, something in their Readiness Level that wasnt ready but we didnt want to lose them out of our farm system. The psa is a place where you can put them and they can learn a lot about being a Police Officer and build, like for instance in some cases consistency in job history. We have great diversity within our psa pool. An overview of the Academy Classes that made up the hiring for the year. Only 15 recruits psas and we anticipate another 100 hires for the year. And demographic and language is spoken that information is provided for the Police Service aids also. And an individual breakdown for the 238 entry level class. Of note because we take our responsibility serious, this slide references aint natural policy that prohibits the release of information. It also notes the appropriate info to provide to the candidate who is in process. Just a necessary element to have some checks and balances on what we do. Do we have any plans for a lateral class during this fiscal year . Yes, commissioner. We would like to have one either at the end of this particular calendar year or the beginning of the next calendar year. As a matter of fact, the chief spoke to me about that a few weeks ago. We are actually starting that process now. One other document that i will make mention of is our Background Investigation excuse me, the San Francisco Police Department bulletin 13094 regarding member inquiries. This is important because we had a number of members in inquiring about the members in process. This evaluation is to ensure the process is done without favor. Basically it prohibits members from making Background Information on peoples behalves. Our department is current. This will not prevent the hiring of the next class. And for comparison, we also included the city demographics for the city of San Francisco. Commissioners, can i entertain any questions . Commissioner kingsley first. Thank you, captain, and sergeant and lieutenant. I appreciate your work on putting this together. My main question you addressed in your last two slides with the comparison of the demographics to the breakdown of the Police Officers to the community at large which just came in today. So i appreciate the fact that it came with the earlier packet. Substance abuse is checked in the background. Can you tell us a little bit more about that because i know you have a wide range of ages probably with the laterals and the new recruits. What kinds of things are you looking for . Well, if a person has had a past issue, the time and distance is something that we evaluate. How much time has gone by, how much distance has gone by without another episodes. We have to be talking about something relatively small. Does the person have a history of behavior, is there a history of alcohol related incidents. One incident may not reveal a pattern of behavior. People can negotiate those. We are not a Perfect Society but we hope to have behavior thats indicated since then that doesnt show any type of pattern. We have candidates who have had a particular issue in the past with alcohol and no longer drink. So those are things that we would look for Going Forward in regards to that. The psychological evaluation also goes deeper into that. I cant comment on that because thats privileged information that they maintain. But they make a recommendation based on their findings to us on a pass or fail for each candidate. Drugs has increased over the last decades in our society. Some of you have gray hairs and may have been around the department for a while. Do you see any difference in recruits in the backgrounds and prior drug use . There are some applicants who have, its self disclosure process. Some candidates who do make self disclosure is no longer involved in the process depending on the drugs that were used. There are standards. There are standards that are not hard and fast. We have criteria and we work with so all candidates are treated equally. Its not subjective, their objective threshold standards . Okay. Good. The triage session thats an interesting component to this. The hair sample for psycho medics . These are basically screenings at each stage. A person using drugs currently that test positive for drugs, there is unfortunately has been and those people are removed from the hiring process. These are basically tools that we utilize. The polygraph, i see thats a post conditional offer exam. What is that used, what kind of questions come up with that . They reveal the information that you submit on your personal history questionnaire and statements. Things about employment, things about drug use, things about theft. Different types of integrity questions. A lot of that is followed up. To determine if they have come up with something otherwise and we need to confirm the information provided was truthful. Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate your information. Commissioner loftus . Thank you so much for your presentation. I know i was one of those particularly interested in this issue because recognizing we are going to be hiring over 700 officers in the next 5 years, is that right . It feels like a tremendous opportunity when you hear those Harvard Business studies when they say if you want to train new people, fire half. We have an incredible turnover in the department which means an opportunity to do things better and one of those things is to diversify the department. I dont know if thats a goal of the chief and i just wanted to say that as a prosecutor, one of the things that i tried to do and found was difficult that it can be difficult for communities that have been disenfranchised traditionally with Law Enforcement, i found that as a prosecutor i would go to law schools and trying to get people to be prosecutors and people would say, i want to be a public defender and defend people, i would say you have the tremendous opportunity to do justice and the right thing. So my question is, i am getting to a question. My colleagues are a little fatigued. To what extent do we get the recruiting effort to people that go traditionally or not going online to see themselves as an officer. Probably our biggest recruiting effort is taken place in San Francisco schools. I personally go to schools now that school is back in session at least once a month. Oftentimes twice a month to talk to kids about going to class and staying in school and graduating from high school and we bring firefighters and munis and everybody that got a diploma to at least get through high school and if they are job ready and College Ready at that point in time, all the dangerous numbers especially for our at risk kids come without a high school diploma. I actually say very seriously this doesnt mean that you cant go to college, but a hundred percent of the people that graduate from college went to High School First and got their ged. Weve gotten some recruits this way. One of the problems is to be recruiting yearround and to tell people you cant sign up. When we get this online testing thing and we go to the schools, we try to get this em to go to our cadet program. We have kids that have gone to our psa program. Weve spoken to people thu through our foundation to try to bring back money to get the paid cadet program. A lot of former rank Police Officers participated in. These are all good things to hold kids interest to keep them out of trouble and get them in the Police Department later on. I do believe our best resource for recruiting people is out of our own schools in San Francisco because they reflect the city that we live in and i still believe that often is the case the best San Francisco Police Officers are the city San Franciscoans. It appears its off balance. The filipino is ethnicity where asian is a race. Okay. Are we doing something if i may, the city census data that is provided does not reflect the department of Human Resources ethnic breakdowns that they use. So the city census information use other categories that are inclusive of other ethnic backgrounds. The numbers are a little skewed. There was nothing i can pull for direct comparison. Sure, i understand. Thank you. My apologies, commissioner. I completely understand. When is that going to be online . We are hoping for november. Our deal was you had to be ready to give a test the week after christmas and for december and or you have to substitute and regardless people should be able to apply as they have been hoping to one way or the other. Great, i think one way they want to reflect San Francisco in the many ways, there are some communities that are very well represented. We take it upon ourselves to actively recruit and not just make that the departments problems. I recruit at meetings. Im going to recruit someone success fully. Thats my goal. The section question, it strikes me that background checks is where folks can get knocked out of this process that didnt take this narrow path. I have been always a rule follower but my husband, not so much. When i have kids i have parents that follows the rules and a parent that explains how to get around things. There is benefit m having folks who took a different path to righteousness, to law abiding, is there anything that prevent people from entering into the academy regardless of demographic status but as a source of Life Experience to being an officer. As far as Life Experience, we hire all age groups. For people that break the rules . For people that break the rules there are standards that we hire. We are audited by post. The captain used time and distance. Some of the people that have applied and myself, the captain has come down and not telling me that i failed in my recruiting effort, i feel this person is a great person, but well have a discussion so the decisions then maybe a little time and distance. The conversation is that you just need to be as you are now, but you know what we are talking about and again for reasons we cant discuss, you need to put some time and distance and demonstrate on some of those smaller woopses and you stay clear of them for a year or two and reply and come back. Its a question too. We look at it as a vocation as certainly all the lawyers do what you do. If its really meant to be, its worth waiting for and its worth staying clear of whatever the stuff was for a couple of years. We do try and put them into something to give them that continuous job history so they dont fall back on. If you can just demonstrate that you are that person for a couple of years, we can usually get around some of the gray areas. Commissioner dejesus . I just want some nuts and bolts. When people ask me how do you find out about it . Im hearing the test is going to be after thanksgiving . The question will be that there will be a test the last week, an application period the last week in november, first week in december. Worst Case Scenario. The application period is open before the test. Thats the application process. It will be that, the worst Case Scenario or by november you will be able to take a test online on going. So well tell people they can go to your website by november. Yes, the sf gov website. I imagine if we go to continue use online testing, well do a significant press announcement that thats the case. All right. Thank you. Thats all i have. Commissioner chan . Thank you for your presentation, i appreciate it. So looks like a lot of questions were covered with the questions that i was curious about too. What was the access for the language ability, i noticed there are more. Its exciting that there is some classes with significant Spanish Language capability which i think is great too. I wanted to ask is it self identifying language or is there testing . Yes, it is self identifying for the languages. However, for the languages that the city pays attention to there is testing, cantonese, russian and spanish. Its not part of the hiring process, right . Its not part of the hiring process. If they participate thats their choice and they can do that after becoming officers. The language ability, is that oral and also written . I believe its oral and i believe thats whats tested. I cant speak to the written. Just a thing i have noticed around town billboards encouraging people to apply in richmond and geary, im wondering if there are lots of billboards around and seems like thats one of the strategies and if the commission can do more to recruit . I think the billboards you are talking about, the poa billboards have paid for some billboards where they are putting up certain officers, officer that saved the lady from the burning building. Hes on the billboard and they did a campaign iechl i think it the p oa that does that. To me its like teaing it up and put the ball away. We have an interest card and they take the test. Thank you. In the interest card is that online . There is a physical interest card that you can fill out or i believe you can do it online. Where is the physical interest card located . Department of Human Resources. They administer the exam. And then i noticed the same thing about the officers. There is probably a challenge for everybody to ensure the female officers is as high as possible. I think thats an area for all departments can work on. We have a really good representation of female candidates in this class and some real quality female candidates remain on the list for picking up in future classes. In graduation i went to i saw female graduates that won big awards for that class. If i may address that further, commissioner, we are not provided any demographics from Human Resources. Its a blind process. As getting into this new list, there has been a significant increase in female applicants, upwards of 80 percent more. Its significant. We knew that was one of our weaker areas if you will and there was a focus on our recruiting effort. African american was low, they improved as well, not at the significance of the female applicants but we are seeing representation in both. Its still early. There is an improvement shown. Thank you. Thats helpful. Commissioner sherman. Thank you for the representation. Its great that you have female officers because im noticing 50 percent more of your psa are women than men. And that seems odd to me. Whats the as i heard this is sort of a farm club for the psa to be a farm club for the actual Police Officers job. So are we having an issue with translating women from the psa ranks to the officer ranks . I can only speak to the fact, we have 40 applicants to get the 15 that we hired to give you an idea of the numbers we ran into. There is an order for each candidate. Should a person be removed from the process we move on to the next candidate. That was the breakdown of who successfully negotiated the background processing was hired. I was speaking the candidates in this group of psas particularly that went from wanting to be a psa, i actually suggested they take that route. The women got the job they applied for and i spoke to them on the day they briefed and asked why they were aiming g low and they should consider being Police Officers and so well see how they turn out. We did hire two women in the psa academy. Thank you. Also in terms of your demographic information, are we soliciting and lgbt, you can identify those categories as well. We have an active peg group and we have a city and a culture that is very tied to that community. What is the issue with it . Why dont i see that in here . We dont track that information. Why dont we track that information . Some of the department recruits feel that anything they ask is compulsory and they dont want to lie. So we believe the discretion in their recruit process fearing there could be some reprisal for asking that its up to them. A simple explanation is that we ask you this to identify these issues just for our tracking purposes to find out and to get a sense of the people in the different demographics. That wouldnt work in this situationcious , is that what you are saying . Its hard to explain the dynamic in a Para Military organization where people come in and it foreign to them. What about an active recruiting process. I see reports that dont seem to have this information . For people that are open its not a problem at all. Im not saying its a problem, chief. I say dont have a sense of it. If you would like, the day they get to the station, at that point in time its usually no problem. So we can retro, in retrospect we can tell you without putting anyone on the spot. The amount of pressure that these folks put upon themselves, they want this job so bad they so have a picture of what its like to be in Law Enforcement that may or may not be realistic. Some of them are not as fit as others, some of them havent been in school for a while. So we really dont want to give them one more thing to think about. But once they are clear of the gates for what you say for these purposes but asking an openly gay black man, i dont think its any harder to identify myself as black other than gay. I understand your position. You are right, i have never been and never will be a member of the Para Military organization. So i have to accept your word on that. But i dont think identifying yourself as lgbt is a stigma. Its also a status and a sense of being that many maybe proud of. I dont think there would be anything wrong with asking. I think perhaps we should explore how best to gather this information. I think it would be a comfort to the community and the officers ranks to know this position. I couldnt agree with you more. But what often happens, it only takes one believes that police are a certain way and actually the members of our department that is right lgbt find out are pretty cool. But in the process, there could be one that can make it a problem. I dont want it to be a problem for that person. Hes an entertainment lawyer. Can we ask that question . You can ask that question on a volunteer basis. Employers do it all the time for demographic information. May i jump in too on that topic . It sounds like a large part of what you are aiming g for or addressing an outreach. Can that be addressed in recruiting and adding a statement that the department welcomes and is looking for a large Diverse Group of applicants including members of we do that. We recruit at all events in the lbgt community. And again im not reticent at all to ask on a volunteer basis once they are clear of the process. Im just a little bit skidish about asking in the beginning buchlt i but i refer to an entertainment lawyer if someone wants to disclose another