01-28-19 Health and Public Safety

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CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK percent (85%) of people in the fire service are recruited through word of mouth. It's really important for us to make sure we follow up with that and we reach out to as many people as we can to get that word of mouth in. He went on(referencing a slide in the presentation),This is a picture from our recruitment class of 2017. As you can see, we had three (3) women in this recruit class. We had Joe Wade in the back of the photo,he's a graduate of Washington High School and is African American. Cesar Salinas is from Elkhart and is bilingual. Additionally, five(5) of these individuals are veterans. So, in one (1) class, I would argue we knocked it out of the park in regard to trying to bring more diversity to our department. I just wanted to show this picture as an example of the successes we've had. Additionally, the lady in the middle, Leah Eddy, is also Hispanic and is bilingual as well. She's a double legacy at our department as well. Her dad and her grandfather have served. I'm happy to answer any additional questions anybody may have. Committeemember Oliver Davis asked, What was the department up in Wisconsin doing that was the key thing? Chief Cox replied, That was the Madison Fire Department in Madison, Wisconsin. One(1) of the things they did was they created a recruitment committee. Chief Art Price formed a committee of approximately sixteen (16) individuals within his department. The diversity within Madison, Wisconsin is much different than in South Bend. They have a very large Hmong population, so they have to very directly reach out to that community. They have a significant Latino and African American population as well. So, his suggestions were that it is very important for us to have fire fighters that look like the populations that we go out and recruit. That way, individuals in our community that we are recruiting,they have something in common. They don't feel like there is a wall between them. They can speak freely and openly about the department. That was the number one (1) take away we got from Madison. Now, they have a Big Ten (10) University right in town with 40,000 students. His applicant pool looks way different from ours as well. They go to the women's softball and basketball teams, even the men's football team. Chief Price went to a lot of different events in the city. We spoke to a lot of community leaders and in the end,when we spoke to nineteen (19) to twenty-three (23) year old individuals, no offense to anyone in the room but they don't want to talk to us. They want to talk to people their age about the job. I'm going to have a different perspective than the younger fire fighters do. And the folks in Lansing reiterated a lot of what the Madison department was doing. They had a recruitment committee and attended a lot of the same events. Councilmember Regina Williams-Preston asked,Have you seen people graduate the CTE program for high school and join your department? Chief Cox replied, Yes. They haven't gotten their way to actually being hired yet. We started that program three (3) years ago. It's a two (2) year program, the kids graduate and then move onto whatever else they're doing. On our current hiring list, we have two (2) year men who graduated our CTE program. In fact, one(1) of them is relatively high on the list right now. We anticipate to probably get to him. That will be a tremendous success story. I know when I brought that program to the Council,we wanted to think of that as a long-term recruitment tool. We had fifteen(15)kids start it this past fall. That program is growing and has been a wonderful experience. EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 5