From Mayor Finch:
Entry-Level Firefighter Test Applications Now Available. Candidates must be CPAT-certified; orientations sessions to be held
Mayor Bill Finch announced today that the City of Bridgeport is now accepting applications for the entry-level firefighter exam to be given on November 19, 2011. Applications will be accepted until November 4, 2011.
In order to apply to take the exam, candidates must have passed the Candidate Physical Ability Test (CPAT) and have been certified as of June 1, 2011 or later. Individuals cannot apply if they have not been CPAT certified; no exceptions will be made.
“We are looking forward to adding new firefighters to ranks of Bridgeport’s Bravest,” said Mayor Bill Finch. “I encourage all those who are eligible, especially Bridgeport residents who are eligible, to apply for this exam and take the next step toward becoming a member of the Bridgeport Fire Department.”
According to the Civil Service Office, there are 1,700 individuals who have passed the CPAT and are eligible to take the Entry Level Exam.
“The Bridgeport Fire Department offers men and women with an outstanding opportunity to serve the community and an excellent career,” said Fire Chief Rooney. “Being a firefighter is not for everyone. This exam along with the CPAT, will allow us to select the very best men and women for the department.”
The CPAT certification means the candidate has successfully passed the Candidate Physical Ability Test administered by the State of Connecticut Fire Academy. The CPAT certification is a practical exam conducted by the Connecticut Fire Academy used to test a candidate’s physical ability to perform a job task related to firefighting.
Candidates who apply now will receive an invitation to an orientation session, which will include a study guide, practice test and an overview of the written exam. The last entry-level test was administered in 2005 and expired in 2007.
For more information and a downloadable application please visit us online at www.bridgeportct.gov (click on “City Job Listings”) or visit the Civil Service Office, located at City Hall in Bridgeport, 45 Lyon Terrace, Room 325. Candidates can also follow us on Facebook: Bridgeport Civil Service or Twitter: @COBCS. For more information, call Civil Service at 203.576.7555.
I am against using the CPAT testing as a requirement to taking the firefighter exam. I believe it puts inner city applicants at a distinct disadvantage. Portions of the test such as the ladder raise is an example of that disadvantage. The kids from the ‘burbs have access to volunteer fire departments and their training, the kids from Bridgeport have no such access. Many of the kids from the inner cities never put up a ladder or climbed a ladder.
Then there is the $150 fee for taking the exam plus the need to travel across the state to take this test.
In these hard economic times Bridgeport Fire Departments should be open to Bridgeport residents only. You can give an agility test here in Bridgeport and the rookie training is going to be done by the Bridgeport FD training division.
Civil Service is so hot on this CPAT testing yet they won’t place a maximum age requirement for candidates.
I have spoken to both Dunn and Rooney on this subject of a maximum age requirement and pointed out to both Federal Law allows public safety jobs to have a maximum age, in fact Federal Firefighters must retire at age 57. Under the present system we could be getting a rookie at age 57.
Having no maximum age means a rookie can be 50 years old when he starts and to reach minimum pension requirements he would be 75 years old. Most likely that is not going to happen and he or she will become a drain on the pension system.
*** It’s a money-pit exam with a stone-age civil service backing. Time to revamp the whole future pending city suits system! *** OIB ***
I can’t believe I am saying this but I agree with tc. CPAT is a bad idea for Bridgeport, the BFD, the residents of Bridgeport and for the African Americans, Latinos and Women who aspire to be Bridgeport firefighters. This process certainly creates an undue financial burden for our residents in these tough economic times.
According to the Connecticut Post in an article written on March 7, 2010, Blacks and Latinos continued to post much higher unemployment rates than whites. And right now it’s particularly hard on black men, who have an unemployment rate of 20 percent in Connecticut, compared to the 8.5 percent for white men. About 13.2 percent of Latino men are unemployed. According to an FOI request from Civil Service, of those hired from the 2002 exam, 36% were Black, 35% were Latino, 29% were White, 14% were women and here is the big one, 79% were city residents. As you can see those numbers are very similar to the population of Bridgeport. FDNY Lt. Brenda Berkman, an attorney and former president of the Women in the Fire Service board of directors, tracks women’s pass/fail statistics closely and based on initial observations and analysis, Berkman said women are passing CPAT in much lower numbers than men, which may be evidence CPAT has an adverse impact on women applicants.
Since 2000 the Stamford Fire Department which also uses CPAT has hired 4 Blacks, 5 Latinos, no Women and 76 White males. The Firebird Society thinks CPAT is being used to eliminate Blacks, Latinos and Women from the hiring process. We also think CPAT is being use as an affront to the recently added preference points for Bridgeport residents.
Ron Mackey and I worked extremely hard to bring preference points to Bridgeport City government. While sitting in the Firebird office I was looking over the numbers from the 1998 exam and I noticed if Bridgeport residents were given an additional 10% on their score that would move the Bridgeport resident who was 286 on that employment list to 50th on the list. I also noticed of the top 50 finishers 43 were Bridgeport residents. Mackey and I put this information into a power-point program and presented it to Ed Gomes when he was on the city council. Ed told us to give it to Don Clemons who was also a city councilman and a retired firefighter and he and Bob Walsh would see it went through the council successfully. We met with Clemons and gave him a copy of our Preference Point Proposal and ultimately it was passed by the council just as we wrote it.
We did this to keep the jobs as well as the income of Bridgeport firefighters in the city of Bridgeport. In fact of those city residents who were hired from the 2002 employment list I know of eight who have purchased homes here in our city. Those eight individuals are essentially helping to pay for their salaries, while those from the suburbs take their incomes back to their communities for the uplift of those communities. There has never been in the history of the BFD an individual from the suburbs who became a Bridgeport firefighter who has moved to Bridgeport after being hired.
I am neither saying nor intimating those individuals from the suburbs aren’t great firefighters who put their lives on the line every day they come to work. What I am saying is those firefighters from Bridgeport are also great firefighters who are putting their lives on the line and are also using their salary for the uplift of the Bridgeport community. All things being equal, give me the Bridgeport kid.
Thanks Don, there is always common ground if we look hard enough.
There is no reason a Fire candidate should be required to complete skilled events with specific tools to simply prove they are physically fit to be considered a qualified candidate to be TAUGHT the skills of the job. The CPAT organizers have no science to back their claim this is the only and best indicator of future job success, however statistics clearly show the same test has a disparate impact on minorities and women for a number of reasons.