Boston Police Begging For Officers To Transfer There (Cohasset: apartment, violent crime)

[timberline742]

Originally Posted by msRB311

Pfft. good luck with that then!

Maybe if there was affordable housing...

[bostongymjunkie]

Originally Posted by robr2

Boston was waiving the 1 year city residence requirement for vets who wanted to be a Boston cop or firefighter. So a vet from Arlington or Arkansas would be hired before a resident who couldn't even take the exam before having lived there for a full year.

I'm guessing even waiving the requirement didn't draw enough.

That doesn't sound right to me. Per civil service rules pre-employment residency requirements for returning vets are waived if they lived in the municipality immediately before they deployed and are now returning directly from military service AND they did not move to another city during the year prior to the exam. That Arkansas applicant could only be considered if they had first taken the MA civil service test, received a competitive score and were called off a civil service list. You don't need to live in MA to take the exam and you don't need to live in Boston for a year to take the exam. You just need to live in Boston (or any city with that requirement) for a year to claim residency preference. If the out of state applicant didn't live in Boston at all, I don't see how they would meet that requirement.

All that is separate from the residency rule which requires police officers to reside within city limits for the first 10 years of their career and which this latest recruiting effort promises to waive, for 6 months.

[msRB311]

Many cops already do live in the city. But asking them to move from a suburb is likely not going to happened. Most don't qualify for affordable housing

[bostongymjunkie]

The ones would likely consider may be those looking for a better employment situation and willing to live the spartan life for a few years until they can get some pay grade steps and take advantage of details and OT. There is likely a number of cops in other areas who wanted to be Boston cops and for one reason or another couldn't get on. They may have been Boston natives who moved later in life, or they may be people who just want to do police work in a city such as Boston and don't want to leave the state. This might be their opportunity to get on. There won't be nearly as many as in years past, but there may be some.

[robr2]

Originally Posted by bostongymjunkie

That doesn't sound right to me. Per civil service rules pre-employment residency requirements for returning vets are waived if they lived in the municipality immediately before they deployed and are now returning directly from military service AND they did not move to another city during the year prior to the exam. That Arkansas applicant could only be considered if they had first taken the MA civil service test, received a competitive score and were called off a civil service list. You don't need to live in MA to take the exam and you don't need to live in Boston for a year to take the exam. You just need to live in Boston (or any city with that requirement) for a year to claim residency preference. If the out of state applicant didn't live in Boston at all, I don't see how they would meet that requirement.

All that is separate from the residency rule which requires police officers to reside within city limits for the first 10 years of their career and which this latest recruiting effort promises to waive, for 6 months.

I misread the requirement. It reads that if a person who has taken the civil service exam, they get moved up the list if they have lived in Boston for at least a year. A veteran from Massachusetts gets residency preference if they move to Boston within 90 days of separating from active duty. So these vets get moved ahead of residents who have been waiting the year to apply.

[bostongymjunkie]

Originally Posted by robr2

I misread the requirement. It reads that if a person who has taken the civil service exam, they get moved up the list if they have lived in Boston for at least a year. A veteran from Massachusetts gets residency preference if they move to Boston within 90 days of separating from active duty. So these vets get moved ahead of residents who have been waiting the year to apply.

Not sure I get the point here. They all took the test on the same date. They were all waiting to be called off the list. The difference is that the vet was serving the nation in the military while waiting. The vet also gets points added to their test score, per civil service. They all still need to compete in a qualification sense.

[robr2]

Originally Posted by bostongymjunkie

Not sure I get the point here. They all took the test on the same date. They were all waiting to be called off the list. The difference is that the vet was serving the nation in the military while waiting. The vet also gets points added to their test score, per civil service. They all still need to compete in a qualification sense.

It comes down to timing. A vet can be hired from the list the day they move to Boston. Everyone else has to wait 365 days before being chosen. Every time a vet gets that preference, it blocks a longer term resident from being hired.

[bostongymjunkie]

Originally Posted by robr2

It comes down to timing. A vet can be hired from the list the day they move to Boston. Everyone else has to wait 365 days before being chosen. Every time a vet gets that preference, it blocks a longer term resident from being hired.

Where are you reading that Boston Police have their own deal going on regarding pre-employment residency as it applies to vets, separate from that of the civil service commission rules? I'd be interested in reading that. BTW: People have been given different preferences over the years, nothing new there. Cadets have bumped other applicants, minorities have bumped other applicants etc. Civil service has a set of rules and municipalities often find ways of skipping over candidates on the list. Some of those may be more justified than others. I'm not crying a river because someone waits longer because another candidate of the same or better qualifications got selected because they were deployed in the military and not technically sleeping in Boston. Because that's what we're talking about here; where someone was sleeping.

[robr2]

Originally Posted by bostongymjunkie

Where are you reading that Boston Police have their own deal going on regarding pre-employment residency as it applies to vets, separate from that of the civil service commission rules? I'd be interested in reading that. BTW: People have been given different preferences over the years, nothing new there. Cadets have bumped other applicants, minorities have bumped other applicants etc. Civil service has a set of rules and municipalities often find ways of skipping over candidates on the list. Some of those may be more justified than others. I'm not crying a river because someone waits longer because another candidate of the same or better qualifications got selected because they were deployed in the military and not technically sleeping in Boston. Because that's what we're talking about here; where someone was sleeping.

It's an article from 2018:

https://www.wbur.org/news/2018/02/14...itary-veterans

[bostongymjunkie]

Originally Posted by robr2

It's an article from 2018:

https://www.wbur.org/news/2018/02/14...itary-veterans

Hmmm, this doesn't sound like they are applying the law the way it was intended to be. Someone who never had residency in the city should not be able to circumvent the residency rule. On another note, it may be time to rethink the civil service system as we know it and consider something closer to direct-hiring, where each department gives their own exams and does their own thing. I think it would result in better candidates and it would give departments more latitude to recruit who they want. I don't think it can be dismantled completely given the nature of Massachusetts patronage, but something needs to be done.