Offering several prospective Bernalillo County Sheriff's deputies a second chance to take oral interviews isn't the only step the department has taken to make it a bit easier to join the ranks.
In another new wrinkle, a bad credit report won't necessarily disqualify BCSO applicants from getting a badge and gun from the county.
The union that represents sheriff's deputies says that's a bad idea and in a statement described the importance of credit checks in hiring law enforcement officers.
"The public does not want a deputy that shows a long history of being in a lot of debt," the statement said. "History has shown that a lot of debt can lead to a person feeling stress about paying their bills, and open to bribery or intimidation from an outside party."
The union also believes allowing several academy candidates to re-interview after pre- viously failing oral exams -- which Houston has scheduled for Monday -- violates the union contract.
Jennifer Vega-Brown, Houston's spokeswoman and staff attorney, says the changes are aimed at making the hiring process more "equitable" and will allow the department to fill the upcoming academy class, which was destined to be too small.
Houston has "instituted an approach in evaluating a candidate's credit history that will take into consideration circumstances that are out of the candidate's control in order to foster a hiring process that is equitable," Vega-Brown wrote in her statement.
"It would not make sense to not allow people to reapply immediately," she wrote in an email. "Why make them wait six months or more when we have a need now?"
But the union says the changes amount to lowering the department's standards.
"The past hiring process has been a fair process," union President Kyle Hartsock and Vice President Peter Golden said in a statement. "Approximately 70 percent of the department has been directly hired under that process. To say it is not a fair process puts an untrue characterization that the current deputies were hired under a defective system.
"We support and encourage the failed applicants to apply again for our next academy, which is usually in 6 months to a year, just like we have always done. We encourage the growth of our department to meet the needs of our community. But we must not forget our standards."
On Tuesday, the Journal reported several candidates for the BCSO academy who failed oral interviews were getting a second chance after the County Commission chairman called Houston to "inquire about the status" of one of those who failed.
Chairman Art De La Cruz has said he was only trying to get information about the family member of a constituent who had failed his oral interview, not use his position to influence a hiring decision.
Vega-Brown said in her statement and in a series of emails that Houston decided to offer the candidates who failed oral interviews a second chance because the current process is "too subjective."
In the past, the oral exams were graded as pass or fail. The re-tests for those who failed during the current process will be graded pass or pass with reservations. In the future, they will be graded pass, pass with reservations or fail, Vega-Brown said.
The union blasted Houston in Tuesday's Journal story, saying the oral interviews have been conducted the same way for the better part of a decade, and the process didn't need fixing.
The back and forth has created tension between the union and the administration.
On Monday, after a meeting about the oral interviews, Hartsock was told by a chief deputy that the union would only be invited to Tuesday staff meetings once a quarter. Previously, union officials have attended the meeting each week, Hartsock said.
Vega-Brown disagreed with Hartsock's assessment.
The union "did attend (the meeting) periodically but not on a consistent weekly basis," she said. "In addition, the staff meeting is for command staff. This is a meeting the sheriff sets. There is absolutely no requirement for him to invite anyone."
On Tuesday, relations got worse, Hartsock said, when the sheriff kicked the union out of its office space at the BCSO academy. After doing so, he said, Houston offered the union a small space at BCSO headquarters that would not be large enough to conduct union business.
Vega-Brown also disagreed with that characterization, saying Houston did not know until Tuesday that the union had moved from a small janitorial space at the academy to a larger room there a few weeks ago. The academy commander, she said, did not know the union had been offered a space at headquarters.
When the commander and Houston spoke on Tuesday, she said, "the sheriff made a decision on the issue."
Copyright 2012 - Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
