AURORA — Slowly, the police and fire departments are diversifying their ranks to better represent the makeup of the community, but there is still a long way to go, officials said Wednesday.
Aurora police- and fire-department academies are seeing their highest numbers of blacks and Latinos, said Matt Cain, administrator for the Aurora Civil Service Commission, which hires to fill entry-level positions in both departments.
Cain briefed the Public Safety Committee on Wednesday on what has been done to improve minority numbers in both departments since a federal probe three years ago.
At the end of last year, Latinos and blacks made up 12 percent of the police force, Cain said, and after the August 2011 police academy, 35 percent of officers who graduated — six of 17 — were black or Latino.
Similarly, the last two fire-department academies and another this spring are expected to graduate eight black or Latino candidates out of 21 candidates.
But those numbers are far from representative of the city as a whole. Of the 320,000-plus residents in Aurora, 15 percent are black and 25 percent are Latino.
“Despite these positive changes, I think we still have a ways to go,” Cain told the committee.
Improving minority numbers is a priority for Aurora. The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating both departments for their low minority representation. The Justice Department began its inquiry in July 2009 and could make its findings public sometime this year.
Since then, the city has implemented several changes to the hiring process. Those include awarding more points to candidates who are fluent in a language other than English; changing the testing process from a written form to video-based; and having the chiefs in their respective departments solely responsible for lateral hires, meaning an officer from another department who is hired for a similar position in Aurora.
“I think the changes we made are significant,” said City Councilwoman Melissa Miller, who leads the Public Safety Committee.
Fire Chief Mike Garcia said lateral hiring is the biggest tool the department has to improve diversity, although change has come slowly.
Police Chief Dan Oates said the department has seen its highest number of lateral applicants in years, but getting the candidates to qualify and then hired is a different matter.
He also noted that other police departments also are trying to retain their minority officers, so getting them to make a lateral move to Aurora can be difficult.
Carlos Illescas: 303-954-1175 or cillescas@denverpost.com
