Previous coverage
- Cleveland fire department celebrates 150th anniversary of professional service (
- City officials confident firefighters are well-trained, despite sloppy record-keeping and oversight (
- Cleveland Fire Department spends $1 million less on overtime under new policies (
- Proposed Cleveland charter change on fire chief appointment filed too late for ballot, critics say (
- Some Cleveland firefighters worked up to 120 hours in a row before shift trade policy changed (
- Cleveland firefighters payroll scandal report says Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason made investigation tougher (
- Profiles of the 5 Cleveland firefighters implicated in the payroll scandal (
- Special investigator recommends criminal charges against 5 more Cleveland firefighters (
- Number of Cleveland firefighters calling off sick mid-shift plummets after city requires doctor's note (
- Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson wants to appoint fire department brass, will seek charter change (
- Some Cleveland firefighters with second jobs trade away their shifts (
- Don't judge all area firefighters by few who abused shift trades: John Barkan (
- What Cleveland firefighters need to do to extinguish payroll scandal: Mark Naymik (
- Cleveland firefighter payroll scandal: How it started and what's happened since (
- Email to Cleveland Assistant Law Director described fire department payroll abuse 2 years before investigation (
- Former Cleveland firefighter collected $100,000 in pay and benefits, owes no restitution (
- Cleveland upgrades payroll technology, attempts to stem abuses in Fire Department (
- Jackson says audit shows 'systemic' payroll abuse in Fire Department (
A 27-year-veteran of Cleveland's Fire Department, who sued the city a decade ago claiming that the department's promotional practices were racially biased, was sworn in Friday as the city's fire chief.
Battalion Chief Daryl McGinnis, 54, is the second black fire chief in the city's history. Former chief Paul Stubbs, who held the position from 2004 until his retirement in April, was the first.
McGinnis inherits a department still recovering from a series of city audits that revealed numerous payroll abuses, including the discovery that 518 of the nearly 800 firefighters either failed to repay or were owed traded hours between 2006 and 2010.
Some were discovered to have been illegally selling their shifts to colleagues.
Often, the arrangement granted firefighters enough free time to hold second jobs or even careers, while receiving pay and benefits from the city.
One firefighter pleaded guilty in April to paying colleagues to work in his stead, and a special investigator has recommended that five others face criminal charges.
McGinnis said at his swearing-in ceremony Friday that the work of addressing the problems within the department already has begun with the installation of an automated timekeeping system, caps on shift trades and other practices. He pledged to work with the administration on its long-term goal of integrating the fire department and the city's emergency medical service. And he said he will strive to restore the public's confidence in departmental operations.
"I desire a sincere and frank dialogue about moving the division forward," McGinnis said. "My goal is an efficient, productive, integrated division that will serve a community that desperately needs us to be on top of our game."
Mayor Frank Jackson selected McGinnis from a list of three top candidates who passed a civil service promotional exam in recent weeks. The others included Battalion Chief Sean DeCrane and Assistant Chief Patrick Kelly.
Interim Chief Timothy O'Toole -- who has served with the department for nearly 32 years and has filled the seat since Stubbs' retirement -- applied for the job but did not make it onto the eligibility list.
McGinnis was one of 32 black firefighters who filed a lawsuit in 2002, claiming that the test used by the city for promotions was biased against black people, and that some black firefighters were subjected to so much harassment that it constituted a hostile workplace.
A jury issued a split verdict in 2006, after an acrimonious two-week trial. The city agreed to promote 15 black firefighters and pay $650,000 to the plaintiffs.
Jurors found several rounds of promotional tests had an adverse impact on black firefighters but said only the 1996 promotional test was unfair because they had no way of determining whether it was linked to job performance. Records from that test were lost to water damage after a roof collapsed.
McGinnis testified that for two decades, he and other black firefighters also faced social discrimination, rarely were invited to firehouse picnics and were subjected to racial slurs.
He told The Plain Dealer at the time of the verdict: "It's the first step in the right direction toward changing this department and making it a fire department for everyone, not just a few."
During the swearing-in ceremony Friday, Jackson said that since 2004, McGinnis has served as the department's Equal Opportunity Officer, coordinating programs to promote diversity within the department and handling sexual harassment and discrimination complaints.
McGinnis also was instrumental in refining training methods and oversaw the cadet screening process, Jackson said. A graduate of John F. Kennedy High School, McGinnis has a bachelor's degree in education from Florida A&M University.
Fire Union President Frank Szabo said in an interview Friday that McGinnis will have a strong relationship with his charges if he views the union as a partner and not an adversary.
He added that the new chief has his work cut out for him, inheriting a department that is at its lowest strength since prior to World War II. Only three new fire stations have been built since 1976, the department is woefully understaffed, and aging equipment urgently needs replacement, Szabo said.
"The stations need to be in decent condition, and right now they are decrepit," he said. "I hope that better equipment and facilities, as well as staffing, are among his top priorities."
Jackson delayed replacing Stubbs last year while awaiting the outcome of the November election. Voters narrowly rejected a city charter amendment that would have empowered the mayor to appoint the chief, three deputy chiefs and an executive officer from either the department ranks or from outside the department.
Candidates for supervisory positions within the department -- including the chief -- still must take an exam and win approval from the city's Civil Service Commission to fill those jobs.
All but the chief and the executive officer are unionized.
Jackson and his administrators touted the charter change as an important step toward improving supervision of the rank-and-file and ending decades of systemic payroll abuses.
The Firefighters Union launched an aggressive campaign against the charter amendment, declaring it a threat to public safety.