Williams asks about hiring disparities and gender facility needs

Another question I have is, does FDNY, will you assess factors contributing to hiring, promotion, and retention of EMTs and firefighters across applicant demographics?

By the end of 2026, that was something that you stated that you would do.

So just wanted to know if you had any information on what disparities the department has already identified and what corrective actions are under consideration.

In terms of corrective actions, we did quite a bit of an analysis for the 23-24 campaign.

And we came up with a pretty sound blueprint that we used to work through the most recent campaign.

I'm sorry.

UBS campaign for the 23-24 campaign, 2026.

And a lot of what we found was that we needed to focus a bit more and not on just recruiting more people in general.

We wanted to focus more on our reachable test takers, specifically for our firefighter titles.

It's a very competitive title.

And just recruiting blindly and not focusing on where we're finding people that are actually able to pass the exam at a score that's reachable was essential to us.

And so what we did find in some of our preliminary findings is that

the outcome of the exam seems to be a bit more favorable than the goals that we set for the blueprint.

So we're pretty happy about that.

So our focus now is just making sure that we are providing attrition mitigation programs to make sure that the targeted audiences that we focused on reaching are able to pass the physical exam, make it through the hiring process, you know, pair with mentors and all the

programs that we offer to make sure that they make it through the process successfully.

Okay.

Also in your plan, you stated that the department will continue assigning probationary firefighters who reside in New York City to divisions where they live whenever operationally feasible.

What is the rationale behind this initiative and how does FDNY believe it improves community trust or service delivery?

So that is what we consider the home division rule, where probies that live in the city are given the option to be assigned to a fire company in the division in which they reside.

And that was part of our settlement with the court more than 10 years ago.

There are times when due to staffing levels that it's not operationally feasible, and then they would be placed in a division, one of the divisions closer, which does not happen commonly.

Most of the time there, if they request the home division, they are granted the home division.

Okay, just quickly two more quick questions.

Just I want to talk about gender-related facility needs.

So how frequently are borough commanders reviewing gender-related facility needs, and is there a centralized tracking system for unresolved issues?

I know in some previous hearings that was a big complaint.

Just making sure you have facilities for women.

I'm sorry, what was the second part of that?

How frequently are borough commanders reviewing gender-related facility needs, and is there a centralized tracking system for unresolved issues?

So twice a year, the borough commanders have the mixed gender meetings where all the female firefighters are invited to come in and sit down with the borough commander.

And bring up any issues.

And for any facility,

These related problems, there is a resource center, the central reporting system, to track them.

So, yes, they are tracked.