Lieutenant Says Police Chief Exam Process Was 'Subjective', 'Flawed'

Due to a somewhat irregular set of circumstances, will become the next chief, but the post could have gone to Lt. Dan Fischbach. 

Following the announcement earlier this year that would be retiring, the Civil Service Commission – a three-member, city appointed board – began conferring with  and law director John Gasior, as well as other sources, to determine the best way to fill the position, according to Gasior. 

After some debate, the CSC decided on a three-part exam consisting of a background presentation, structural oral interview and written essay with the highest overall score being promoted to chief. 

I/O Solutions, a third party assessment agency, created the exam, recruited and trained three area police chiefs to grade it and tested candidates Capt. Rich Bosley, Lt. Dan Fischbach, Lt. Keith Haag and Lt. Larry Fischbach. 

Dan Fischbach was the front-runner, until Bosley and his lawyer, Jonathan Rosenbaum, found that the written essays contained the candidate’s respective initials, which violated the city’s civil service rules. 

During testing, I/O, who was recommended by the CSC and hired by the city, was unaware of the guideline and had asked the candidates to initial the essays. To settle the matter, the candidates agreed for the Illinois-based agency to find three new Ohio police chiefs and re-grade the exams. 

The chiefs included Christopher Kostura of Orange VIllage, John Maddox of Middleburg Heights and Kevin Nietert of South Euclid. 

When the tests came back, Dan Fischbach’s essay score had dropped from an 86 to a 65, and Larry Fischbach’s score had gone up by 30 points. Bosley’s went down slightly and Haag’s went up slightly. 

In Tuesday’s CSC meeting, Fischbach said the testing process was “flawed”, “horrible”, “subjective” and an “embarrassment” given the discrepancies. 

 “I don’t see how anyone can arguably say that that big of a difference in points remains to be an objective process or fair process, in my opinion,” he said. “But we need to move forward here, that’s why I’m not going to do an official objection. We need a police chief put in place because this department is falling down quickly.” 

Gasior countered with his own statement. 

“Based on the fact you took the exam, I believe you were satisfied with the process,” he said. “Now you come in here and you tell us it was a terrible process, all because one particular portion of the exam had written initials on it. Why (were the initials written)? I have no idea. And I/O Solutions has no idea why they did it the way they did, but we had to correct that (with the re-grade).” 

Ohio Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (OPBA) rep and Avon Police patrolman Eric Bergen also claimed the test was flawed and asked that the exam process be revamped before moving forward with any future promotions down the line of command.

Despite the confusion on the grading, the CSC and Gasior maintained that they did their due diligence, but said they’ll begin to revaluate the testing process at their upcoming Nov. 7 meeting. 

Bosley will be sworn in as chief in the coming weeks, but the date has yet to be determined.