Cobb County's fire hiring practices have caught the heat from the feds, with the Board of Commissioners set to mull over a Consent Decree in answer to the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) claims that certain methods once used disproportionately affected African American applicants.
Between 2016 and 2020, the fire department's penchant for credit checks and a standardized test dubbed the Accuplacer had reportedly put potential Black firefighters at a disadvantage; this all came under scrutiny by the DOJ, with no findings of intentional wrongdoing but enough concern to potentially rewrite the playbook, according to a Cobb County statement.
If the board gives the green light, the county will drop $750,000 in monetary relief to be divided among those who faced the short end of the stick, and make way for up to 16 new firefighters from the same group, giving them a leg up with some backdated seniority perks.
"I have been in continuing communications with our county attorney’s office on this matter," Board of Commissioners Chairwoman Lisa Cupid said, aiming to snuff out any hiring practices with unintended disparate or discriminatory impacts, as she told the Cobb County in a statement; Fire Chief Bill Johnson added that the DOJ's probing confirmed the department's hands were clean of intentional bias and championed its current recruitment strategy as fair and square.
The board’s decision is on the docket for their regular meeting on April 9, when the fate of the consent decree, now lying with the federal district court's approval, and two ensuing fairness hearings will chart a new course for the fire department hiring policies that once came under fire.
