Dude, where’s my district manager?

In about four weeks, 11 New Haven police sergeants will be slated for the rank of lieutenant. And at least eight of these new lieutenants will become new neighborhood cops.

It may come as a relief to neighborhoods currently without their own district managers — or as a disappointment to those who have high-level cops they’ve come to appreciate but no longer have to rank up to stay in the job.

Police Chief Anthony Campbell said those 11 lieutenants will be promoted in a July 13 or 14 ceremony along with 12 or even 15 sergeants, five detectives and an assistant chief. Thirty-one sergeants passed the last lieutenant’s exam.

These promotions will create significant change in the city’s 10 neighborhood police districts. And they present Campbell, who was sworn in this month, with one of his first major decisions that will signal his approach to running the department and the city’s police.

Currently, police district director positions are dominated by police sergeants. Lt. Jason Minardi, who is the district manager for Hill South but also covered Hill North, is the only remaining lieutenant among the managers. Former Hill North District Director Lt. Brendan Hosey now oversees the department’s detention center.

But according to departmental practice, district directors are supposed to be lieutenants, not sergeants, for a variety of reasons (including supervisory experience as well as the need to limit overtime to perform other sergeant duties in the departement). Sergeants have served in these district director positions for years now – and in some cases have earned a reputation for bringing about positive change in neighborhoods from Newhallville to downtown to Fair Haven Heights – due to a shortage of lieutenants, a problem that future promotions will solve.

At least two of the current Sergeant District Directors, Sgt. Renee Dominguez and Sgt. Stephan Torquatti, are among the top scorers in the last lieutenant exam and are likely to be promoted. They are also likely to keep their district manager positions, although Campbell hinted Thursday that he could shake things up by moving them to different districts so they can take on new challenges.

Campbell is currently discussing these changes with his deputy chiefs as they sort out the skills of those who will be promoted to lieutenant and where they might fit best.

But some other neighborhood cops who are sergeants — Sean Maher from Downtown, Roy Davis from East Shore, Shafiq Abdussabur from Newhallville, John Wolcheski from Beaver Hills — passed the recent promotion exam for the rank of lieutenant, but did not score high enough to be promoted in this first wave.

“I wish all sergeants could take the lieutenant exam and I wish those who were eligible had scored high enough” to be promoted, said Campbell, who himself will be officially and publicly sworn in. as chief on Tuesday. ​“I wouldn’t have to make any changes at all, but the reality is that I want all district directors to be lieutenants.

Campbell said he plans to replace all remaining sergeants with new lieutenants promoted from the roster in part because it’s time to bring the department back to its own paramilitary structure and put those positions back in the hands of a rank responsible for supervising teams of officers. in the street.

And that’s important for at least two reasons, he said: chain of command and financial accountability.

“The district directors are all doing a phenomenal job, but the reality is that I want them all to be lieutenants,” he said. ​“It is difficult to have a sergeant who is a district chief to supervise other sergeants.

“When they tell another sergeant to do something, technically by rank, that’s a suggestion,” he added. ​“When a lieutenant tells a sergeant to do something, it’s an order.

Campbell said having lieutenants instead of sergeants fill district manager positions also saves the city money on overtime. Department sergeants have been called upon over the years to fill district director positions due to the shortage of lieutenants. Some sergeants even served double duty – managing two districts – waiting for the day of promotion and new assignments.

The question of when the police department would begin appointing new district managers was raised in Westville/West Hills during the last district management team meeting. Westville/West Hills currently shares a district manager, Sgt. Wolcheski, with the Whalley Avenue/Edgewood/Beaver Hills neighborhood. Wolcheski is among the sergeants who will be reassigned when new lieutenants take up district director positions. This means that both THE WEB and Westville/West Hills will each have new managers.

At the meeting last Wednesday night, the neighbors voted not to meet again until the fall, when they hope to have a new full-time district manager who can provide crime updates. Wolcheski was absent due to injury and other officers had to come in his place. The management team also said they want the police department to notify neighbors of a strategy to tame the dirt bike population that has developed around Edgewood Park.

New challenges for sergeants.

Campbell said it’s not the end of the road for sergeants who will become former district directors. Some of them might have enough time at work to retire and choose to exercise this option. However, Campbell said he believes that over the next two years there is a chance the department will exhaust the roster of lieutenants, which may be extended, as people in higher ranks retire or are promoted, and that these sergeants can move up the list. and become lieutenants with new district assignments.

The new chief said he would like to have a captain’s exam in February 2018 and another for detectives; two department captains are eligible for retirement, as are two deputy chiefs, leaving room for future promotions. This means that some lieutenants who passed the recent promotion could evolve. Additionally, the department plans to create two new police districts by dividing the districts of Morris Cove/Fair Haven Heights/Bishop Woods and Newhallville/East Rock/Cedar Hill. When that happens, Campbell will need two more lieutenants to manage those districts. He said he was looking to do the split next summer based on retirements.

Skip list?

In one plot, Campbell suggested he was willing to deviate from common practice and not necessarily choose lieutenants for promotion based on the order of their recent test score. In other words, chiefs usually pick, say, the top 11 scorers for 11 openers.

Campbell reserved the right to ignore some of the top finishers for others who hadn’t scored as high but might have the right skills to fill the district manager job. Technically, it will be up to the Board of Police Commissioners to decide who will be promoted, but it is traditional to make such promotions based on a recommendation from the Chief of Police.

“I don’t like to jump people, but I’ll jump someone if I feel they need more seasoning or development,” he said. ​“One of the things that this department has done, in my opinion, which is to the detriment of the department and the people, is that we put people in place, but we don’t prepare them to succeed.

“But I believe it’s my duty to start going through the list, see who might need further training, train them so that the next time we promote, we can promote them,” said he declared.

Police and firefighters have faced legal action in the past for the way they promote people. Proponents of promotion strictly based on ranking order test scores argue that this protects against bias and that the tests provide the fairest and most accurate assessments. Opponents argue that strict adherence to test scores ties the chief’s hands in picking the right people for jobs, and that small differences in numerical scores don’t necessarily reflect who is best for a job.

Police union president Craig Miller said he planned to discuss the matter with the chief.

“I am in shock,” he said Monday. ​“I don’t understand why anyone would change the way they did the process [and] go directly to the list with each promotion.

Miller added that the union contract allows sergeants to serve as district managers and that the department has sergeants who have served in that position for decades.

Campbell said he would make the changes in consultation with management teams. Deputy Chief Otoniel Reyes will be making the rounds to meet with neighbors and alders to talk about the upcoming changes. Campbell said once promotions are made in July, people will have two weeks of training and districts may start to see changes in August.