The FDNY has instituted changes to its entrance exam that critics charge will water down standards even more than the hiring of a female firefighter who flunked a fitness test.
Acting on the recommendations of a consultant, PSI Services, the FDNY is reducing the number of exercises that simulate pulling down a ceiling. It is also having supervisors use videos to evaluate trainees not on the time it takes to perform tasks, but on “a minimally acceptable pace of performance.”
One FDNY veteran said those changes make little sense.
“The reason they developed a time standard was to make sure standards remain high and are trusted,” said the veteran. “A subjective standard would undermine that trust.”
PSI also urged the department to reorder the tasks in its functional skills test to “reduce the cumulative fatigue that would occur for a recruit.”
The Law Department commissioned PSI to perform the study to guard against lawsuits from women and African-Americans — groups that have successfully pursued suits in the past, one city official noted.
The department came under fire from within more recently for graduating Rebecca Wax from its academy, despite the fact that she failed a key fitness exam.
City Councilwoman Liz Crowley (D-Queens), whose committee oversees the FDNY, noted that some of the recommendations will actually make testing more difficult for trainees, but that those tests will be “more fair.”
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