On Monday, 24 Sep. 2001, the Public Safety Committee of the Los Angeles City Council will be holding a meeting at which LAPD hiring practices, including polygraph screening, are on the agenda. The schedule includes time for comments from the public, and any who can attend may wish to be there:
PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2001
ROOM 1010, CITY HALL - 10 AM
200 N. SPRING ST., LOS ANGELES, CA 90012
*** PLEASE NOTE NEW COMMITTEE ROOM LOCATION ***
MEMBERS: COUNCILMEMBER CINDY MISCIKOWSKI, CHAIR
COUNCILMEMBER JAN PERRY
COUNCILMEMBER JACK WEISS
COUNCILMEMBER NICK PACHECO
COUNCILMEMBER DENNIS P. ZINE
(Brian Walters - Legislative Assistant - 213-978-1078)
_________________________________________________________________
Note: Assistive listening devices are available at the meeting; upon 72 hour advance notice, other accommodations, such as sign language interpretation, and translation services will be provided. Contact the Legislative Assistant listed above for the needed services. TDD available at (213) 978-1055.
FILE NO. SUBJECT
(1)
------- City Attorney and Chief Legislative Analyst to provide an update on the implementation status of the Consent Decree and other related matters.
DISPOSITION__________________________________________
(2)
------- Chief Legislative Analyst to provide an update on the implementation status of TEAMS II.
DISPOSITION__________________________________________
(3)
------- Police Department to report relative to the Depart ment's plan and implementation time line for collection of pedestrian and traffic stop data on paper forms to meet the Consent Decree November 1, 2001 implementation schedule and associated costs.
Fiscal Impact Statement Submitted: No
DISPOSITION__________________________________________
(4)
Scheduled for Council consideration - September 25,2001
00-0211- Consideration of Motion (Miscikowski - Pacheco)relative
S31 to transfer of funds for printing costs of pedestrian and traffic stop data collection forms and data input scanning services.
Fiscal Impact Statement Submitted: No
DISPOSITION______________________________________
(5)
------- Chief Legislative Analyst to report relative to a lease for the Los Angeles Police Department, Special Opera tions Section, Internal Affairs Group and associated budget needs and required fund transfers.
Fiscal Impact Statement Submitted: No
DISPOSITION______________________________________
(6)
99-1803-S1 Communications from the Police Department relative to the status of its hiring and recruitment efforts for the period ending June 2001. (Also referred to the Personnel Committee)
Fiscal Impact Statement Submitted: No
DISPOSITION__________________________________________
(7)
99-1803-S7 Communication from the Police Department relative to the use of bumper stickers to enhance police officer recruitment.
Fiscal Impact Statement Submitted: No
DISPOSITION__________________________________________
(8)
01-0572 Communications from the Personnel Department relative to its monthly activities to improve recruitment and selection of Police Office candidates for the periods ending May, June, July and August 2001. (Also referred to the Personnel Committee)
Fiscal Impact Statement Submitted: No
DISPOSITION___________________________________________
(9)
01-1586 Personnel and Police Department report relative to the recent Memorandum of Agreement, the resources and authorities needed to fund its coordinated efforts, and any other related police officer recruitment and retention matters, pursuant to Motion (Miscikowski - Weiss) (Also referred to the Personnel and Budget and Finance Committees)
Fiscal Impact Statement Submitted: No
DISPOSITION__________________________________________
(10)
-------- City Administrative Officer to report relative to the Police Department's Interim Budget request for poly graph unit positions.
Fiscal Impact Statement Submitted: No
DISPOSITION__________________________________________
(11)
------ Communication from the Personnel Department relative to a personal services contract with US Investigation Services, Inc. for polygraph and investigative services and reprogramming of funds for the Police Officer Recruitment Incentive Program.
Fiscal Impact Statement Submitted: Yes, by Dept.
DISPOSITION__________________________________________
(12)
01-0219- Consideration of Motion (Padilla - Miscikowski)
S1 relative to the revised Integrity Assurance Package for the Police Department's Risk Management Group, for an additional 63 position authorities.
DISPOSITION__________________________________________
COMMENTS FROM PUBLIC ON ITEMS OF PUBLIC INTEREST
WITHIN COMMITTEE'S SUBJECT MATTER JURISDICTION
George,
What is ironic about the LA City Council meeting is that it is scheduled for 10 AM. This makes it very inconvenient for most of the public to attend. Most people cannot leave work, pay to park downtown, find the room and listen in on the meeting without sacrificing a few hours of pay.
One has to wonder if the LA City Council is interested in what their constituents have to say, especially LA City residents and who have been victims of LAPD's horrible hiring procedures that are worse with the inclusion of the polygraph.
This is good example of how isolated the LA City Council is from the public. In my City, the meetings where held at night and the public could voice their gratitude and displeasure with City officials and to get specific questions answered.
Government works for you, but does the LA City Council value the input of LA City residents? It appears that they don't
Fred F. ;)
Fred F.,
I agree that the scheduling of L.A. City Council meetings at 10:00 A.M. must make attendance difficult for many. Fortunately, David Zahniser of the
Daily Breeze was in attendance and wrote an article on it titled, "Panel seeks to speed LAPD hiring." (http://www.dailybreeze.com/content/bln/nm23828.html)
Some points of note with regard to the LAPD polygraph program:
- A backlog of more than 500 LAPD applicants wait to be polygraphed;
- The Committee voted to recommend that a private company (presumably US Investigation Services, Inc. (http://www.usis.com/), which was mentioned on the agenda but not in Zahniser's article) be awarded a contract of up to $615,000 to address that backlog;
- The Committee also recommended that LAPD establish four new permanent positions for polygraphers.
Quote from: George Maschke on Sep 26, 2001, 03:41 AM
- The Committee voted to recommend that a private company (presumably US Investigation Services, Inc. (http://www.usis.com/), which was mentioned on the agenda but not in Zahniser's article) be awarded a contract of up to $615,000 to address that backlog;
- The Committee also recommended that LAPD establish four new permanent positions for polygraphers.
George,
$615,000 to do 500 polygraphs.....that works out to $1230 a PERSON and $410 dollars an HOUR figuring it takes about 3 hours to do one test.
So if they hire 4 polygraphers would they pay them that kind of money to someone who may or may not have any formal education other than an 8 - 10 weeks of "training" in how to do a polygraph.
Only in LA
Fred F. ;)
Fred F.,
The total number of polygraph interrogations that might be provided under the contract is not clear. Note also that the
Daily Breeze article mentioned that it is in an amount
up to $615,000. It's not clear from the article whether that amount would be applied only to clearing the present backlog, or if it would include potential future backlogs, too.
See also the article, "LAPD Expands Recruitment Efforts" (http://www.msnbc.com/local/knbc/nbcv11atxrc.asp) on the MSNBC website, which is about the same Public Safety Committee meeting, and states in part:
QuoteThe panel unanimously forwarded to the full council Deputy Chief Michael Bostic's request to approve the creation of several new positions, all of which he said were needed to staff a pilot recruitment program.
"I think the LAPD can ill afford cost-cutting measures on staff when we're at the breaking point where we are now," Bostic said.
Among the positions that need to be filled, Bostic said, are polygraph examiners to administer tests to LAPD applicants as part of their background checks.
"Earlier in the year, we asked for eight polygraph examiners; we got six. So, surprise surprise, we're 800 backlogged and now we're trying to play catch up," he said.
When the
Daily Breeze reported the backlog to be "more than 500" it seems to have made an understatement.
Mayor Kenneth Hahn, in a letter to the Board of Police Commissioners dated 5 October 2001, recommended, among other things, the hiring of additional polygraphers:
Quote
Streamline the Hiring Process for Sworn Police Officers: One of the primary causes of delay in the hiring process is the inordinate amount of time it takes to administer polygraph examinations. The Public Safety Committee has been addressing this issue, and the Personnel Department was recently given the authority to enter into a six-month contract to reduce the number of outstanding polygraph examinations. Concurrently, the Personnel Department will aggressively attempt to hire additional polygraph examiners to invigorate the City's polygraph examination process. Reducing this type of delay will go a long way toward achieving Commissioner Boeckmann's goal of a 100-day hiring process.
Mayor Hahn's letter can be downloaded in PDF format at:
http://www.lacity.org/mayor/myrpress/policeco.pdf
A better way to streamline the hiring process would be to scrap the polygraph requirement.
George,
Mayor Hahns letter brings out some other points that are equally disturbing;
He wants to start recruiting at the
High Schoollevel.
Quote
Support of Police Academy Magnet Schools: High School programs for students
interested in law enforcement as a career have been in place for several years.
Currently, there are five high school campuses that offer the program, which has proven
to be key to the education and inspiration of the high school cadets to serve the
community as members of the Los Angeles Police Department in the near future.
Students travel great distances because they feel the Police Academy Magnet provides
them a strong sense of community. To increase the number of LAPD recruits, I believe
we should increase the police academy programs.
The good Mayor is forgetting that you have to be
21 to be appointed to the LAPD. Also, to get young peoples involved in a waiting process is absurd. Making them civilian members of the LAPD to be paperwork jockeys or clerks can have a negative effect as these students will see police work as boring and repetitious and make them lose interest. Also this discourages a college education, but that may be what they want, people without knowledge that they can mold into their model of an officer
However he does have a good idea in forgiving college debt as a recruiting tool
Quote
Create Scholarship Opportunities for Police Recruits: The City should recruit
college students to serve as sworn officers for LAPD. We should consider offering
scholarships or loan forgiveness programs for those who agree to serve a specified
amount of time in the Department. As you know, other cities offer law enforcement
recruits an array of education incentives and we must be sure that we are keeping pace
with other police departments.
While this is a good idea, If the officer still becomes disillusioned all they need to do is put in the time and start applying to other PD's that offer more lucrative work schedules and assignments. The LASD does
NOT forgive college debt, but does allow many to advertise freely to the entire dept. The LASD also has tuition reimbursement.
The most important point still is
to scrap the polygraph requirement. Fred F. ;)