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The council on Monday, Jan. 27, unanimously approved updated classifications (descriptions and requirements) for police corporal and police sergeant positions.
The specifications for those jobs hadn’t been updated for about 17 years, according to the chief of police.
This was originally a Consent Calendar item, but was pulled for separate consideration.
Background
“The City of Seal Beach seeks to continuously update classification specifications to most closely match the actual role and functions of each position,” according to the staff report prepared by Seal Beach Police Capt. Michael Ezroj, of the Police Department’s Operations Bureau.
“The essential duties of Police Corporal and Police Sergeant, as well as the requirements of applicants to those positions, have changed over the last several years,” Ezroj wrote.
“A review of the previous job specifications for the aforementioned positions indicated a need for revisions,” Ezroj wrote.
“The classification specifications have been updated to best reflect the current role of both positions,” Ezroj wrote.
Discussion
Police Chief Michael Henderson gave the staff presentation to the council.
“The request tonight is to update the specifications for those two particular positions,” Henderson said, referring to corporal and sergeant.
“The Police Department is currently undertaking an internal promotional process for the middle management level supervisors of corporal and sergeant,” Henderson said.
“During that process as we reviewed the job specifications, we found that they had not been updated since 2008,” Henderson said.
He said the department’s goal was to update the job specifications as the Police Department has gone through many changes over the past few years including changes in command structure titles.
He said the goal was to draw greater distinctions between the positions of corporal, sergeant, and lieutenant “especially as they relate to others in the chain of command.”
“We found in our old job specifications that a sergeant was reporting to a captain level,” Henderson said.
“That’s no longer the case as we’ve got a lieutenant position,” Henderson said.
According to Henderson, applicants for both the corporal and sergeant ranks will be required to have 60 college units.
According to Henderson, the old rules required a corporal to have an AA degree, but a sergeant was not.
“This just didn’t make sense, it was a little incongruous,” Henderson said.
“So we’re looking to clean that language up,” Henderson said.
He said the department was removing the prohibition for officers on probation to apply for those positions.
“We feel this will broaden the candidate pool,” Henderson said.
“We hire a lot of highly qualified laterals from other agencies who would otherwise be qualified for the position,” Henderson said.
District Three Councilwoman/Mayor Lisa Landau asked for council comments.
“I think this is outstanding,” said District Five Councilman Nathan Steele.
Landau asked if the changes were adding responsibilities to each of the classifications.
“I think it’s more accurate to say we’re bringing greater clarity and distinction to the specific job functions,” Henderson said.
Landau asked if it was just these two positions that needed to be updated.
“No,” Henderson said.
He said the staff expected to work with Human Resources to bring the council more job specifications for updating throughout the Police department and perhaps throughout the city.
“And there’s no cost,” Landau said.
“No cost,” Henderson said.
