Long term goals include increasing the number of minority fire and police department employees to 40-percent in the next decade. To that end, recommendations include using a pass-fail exam for police applicants, step-up recruiting efforts within the city and create fire and police ‘cadet’ programs. Group co-chair, Dr. Rita Ali, says other goals include more frequent testing to give candidates a better shot landing in a police or fire hiring pool, and get District 150 more involved to explore the departments:
“It’s aggressive. It has to be aggressive looking at our past history in order to make change, but we believe that we’ve built in accountability.”
Another recommendation ties meeting goals with management evaluations of the fire and police chief and the city manager. The main goal is to have both departments make changes in ten years to eventually mirror the city’s demographics. Philip Maclin is with the Peoria Fire Department. He says some fire candidates apply to departments in Bloomington and Champaign because Peoria only tests every couple of years:
“We have individuals testing for multiple departments. And so testing twice a year, it keeps our pool refreshed.”
Dr. Ali says the group will also give semi-annual progress updates to the council, the first of which is set for next summer.