Belmont Police Chief James MacIsaac has struggled for years to fill the four vacancies plaguing the department. The staffing shortages have led to forced overtime, low morale and patrol officers switching into specialty positions.
That doesn’t even count one officer out on injury duty and two more on National Guard duty, MacIsaac said.
“It’s tough to run an organization that way, and it has its toll on the group,” he told The Belmont Voice.
MacIsaac says one way Belmont can reach its staffing and diversity goals is by opting out of the Civil Service Division — a statewide office that administers an exam to ensure public safety officers are qualified. Civil service also provides an appeals process to prevent nepotism and unearned promotions in a department.
November’s Special Town Meeting is expected to decide on the issue. The town proposed three years ago for police and fire departments to leave the civil service, but pulled the warrant article from Town Meeting in the midst of heated opposition.
Just like in 2020, the heads of the Belmont Police Patrolmen’s Association and the firefighters union are against the plan.
“If you’re out of civil service where there is even a hint of any type of patronage or special treatment for anyone that could be interjected, it becomes a safety issue for the town and for police officers and firefighters,” said Ross Vona, president of the Belmont firefighters union.
Vona and the patrolmen’s union president Cory Taylor raised concerns that opting out of civil service would lead to nepotism, citing Wellesley’s former fire chief who was fined $10,000 in 2021 for hiring his son.
“You’re not so much concerned about nepotism from the person that’s sitting in that position [right now], but you don’t know who can come in behind them, and what their plan is going to be,” Taylor said.
But MacIsaac argues that stronger state laws and collective bargaining agreements prevent that type of thing from happening.
At last week’s Select Board meeting, Chair Roy Epstein said removing the civil service requirement would save the town $50,000 per hire. However, MacIsaac concedes that some of those savings would be lost, because the department would have to offer more competitive pay.
Century-old institution
Belmont joined civil service more than 100 years ago — in 1915. In recent years, dozens of towns and cities have left it, and no towns have joined in the modern era.
Under the program, Belmont is required to hire from the civil service list, where preference is given to disabled veterans and children of deceased or severely injured officers. Applicants must also be 31 years old or younger.
Belmont currently requires the department to first choose from candidates who have lived in town for at least a year before taking the civil service exam, though that’s not required by civil service.
MacIsaac says there’s little to no interest from Belmont residents, so the department must then choose from other nonresidents on the civil service list. He says this prevents them from considering other potential applicants, like criminal justice students from nearby universities.
Taylor suggests removing the age and residency requirements, but says leaving civil service altogether would be a mistake.
“Once you do it there’s really no turning back,” Taylor said. “The fact that departments aren’t able to get candidates right now has nothing to do with the civil service. That’s just how the times are right now. Even outside of public safety, everybody’s having the same problem.”
Town Meeting will decide
Select Board Member Elizabeth Dionne said the town is only proposing a warrant article for police to leave civil service right now, and believes that will give it a better chance of passing Town Meeting this time around.
“It’s just easier to tackle one at a time. And the more obvious crisis — and I use that word deliberately — is in the police force and our complete inability to fully staff the police force because of the constraints imposed by civil service,” she said. “We now have about seven years of data showing that we cannot hire a full police force.”
But some Town Meeting Members say they want to know what the plan for hiring will be, if Belmont police leave civil service.
“This is an effort by the management, as it were, the chiefs and the town administrator and the Select Board to strengthen their hand in hiring, firing and promotions at the expense of the rank and file,” said Town Meeting Member Paul Roberts (Precinct 8).
Roberts argues that civil service ensures that the police and fire departments are staffed with qualified professionals.
MacIsaac said he’s been advocating to leave civil service as chief since 2020 to ensure he’s able to hire the best candidates because “we all know what bad police officers can do to a city.”
“I’m not saying that if we pull out of civil service, I’m going to have people falling over themselves to become police officers, but I’m going to have more options available to me,” MacIsaac said.
