Baltimore City firefighter unions are asking a court to stop Mayor Sheila Dixon?s order that firefighters must retake promotional exams in the wake of cheating allegations.
“There exists no proof of cheating,” said Stephan Fugate, president of the Baltimore City Fire Officers union. “We have filed and been granted a temporary restraining order against the city.”
Dixon is instructing the Fire Department to readminister the promotional exams for captains and lieutenants given on June 2, after City Inspector General Hilton Green concluded that the exam?s results were compromised. Six test takers were punished after some firefighters complained about suspected cheating on the test.
Fugate said the city is withholding major portions of their investigation ? and he was able to obtain a copy of an investigative memorandum that implicates other individuals as cheaters, though they have not been disciplined.
“There?s consequential information left out of the report,” Fugate said. “There?s more information that implicates other people, who someone would prefer to protect. I view that as obstruction of justice.”
According to Green?s investigation, at least five firefighters used past exams as study guides.
“In reviewing the study material of all five top-scoring African Americans who took the examination it was revealed that they had the actual examination for 2001 in their possession, which they were using as a study guide,” Green wrote. “… When questioned as to how the five acquired the 2001 examination, their responses were deceptive and indirect and some bordered on being unprofessional in that they raised their voices when this question was asked.”
Dixon said she is putting in place new security procedures for the March 15 retest, including assigned seating, new test monitors, increased standards for subject matter experts and restricted access to old tests.
Dixon?s spokesman, Sterling Clifford, said the retest is necessary.
“No one who we had legitimate evidence of cheating is going unpunished,” he said. “It?s vital that public safety commanders have integrity that?s beyond reproach. They have to make life-and-death situations every day and there should never be questions about their qualifications. There?s a great deal of evidence this test was several flawed. We need to have a test that?s not in doubt.”
A hearing on the restraining order is set for March 10, just days before the test is to be readministered.
