MOUNT VERNON — Sometime in the next month, possibly by Sept. 1, Mount Vernon will hire a new police officer.
When Dave McElroy retired, it set in motion a process that is dictated by the Ohio Revised Code and Civil Service regulations. A mayor or City Council can no longer just hire a relative or political supporter.
City Safety-Service Director Dave Glass explained the process.
For an entry level officer, if there is no active list of applicants available from a previous round of hiring, the job first has to be advertised. A deadline for applications is set and at that time applicants are notified when the Civil Service test will be administered, usually in 30 days.
Starting pay for a police officer in Mount Vernon is $19.21 per hour. That will go up to $19.50 in 2014.
The tests are graded and the applicants given any bonus points they may be entitled to. According to Civil Service Director Tony DeIuliis, a 20 percent (of raw test score) bonus must be given for military service. The city also gives a bonus for already having (and holding) Ohio Police Officer Training Academy certification, or for holding a degree in criminology, psychology or sociology. A 20 percent bonus is the maximum that can be given.
Civil Service then prepares a list of the top candidates for the city to interview. Glass said that in the past, the city would get the top 10 names, but the law was changed a couple years ago.
DeIuliis explained that the top 25 percent of those who passed the test are put on the interview list. Since 24 applicants passed the test, the city received six names on the interview list. Twenty-seven people signed up for the test, two failed and one did not show up.
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