City officials on Tuesday approved slight changes to a Columbus Police Department general order that outlines how the vast majority of its employees are evaluated annually.
Columbus Board of Public Works and Safety members approved an update to CPD’s General Order 35: Performance Evaluations, which was last updated in December 2017.
A red-lined version showing the changes is available on the Dropbox folder for board of works meetings on the city’s website under “documents.”
CPD periodically updates general orders based on recommendations by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) and policies mandated by the Indiana Law Enforcement Training Board (LETB).
The general order states that all full-time employees of the department will be evaluated annually based on their job descriptions and ability to meet performance standards.
Employees receive scores from one to three across different categories, with a score of three meaning “performance was exemplary and exceeded most expectations.” They can also get scores of N/A (not applicable) and N/O (not observed) in specific cases, according to city documents.
The chief of police and recruit officers who have not finished the field training officer program are evaluated differently. The chief of police may be evaluated at any time by the administration, whereas recruit officers are evaluated by the evaluation system described in General Order 33.4.3.
Overall, there were three substantive changes to the policy.
One change is about when new sergeants and/or supervisors receive training on how to do the evaluations. Previously, evaluators were trained at an evaluation training session, but there was no timetable associated. Now, supervisors are trained on how to conduct the evaluations just before they start evaluating as a means of keeping how the process works “fresh on the mind,” CPD Capt Brian Wilder explained to board members.
Another change states that a score of “one” in a given category must be supported by documentation through Guardian Tracking entries during an evaluation period.
Guardian Tracking is the software CPD uses for manage employee behavior, recognize high performance and flag potential issues early on. Scores of two or three in a given category “should” be supported by prior Guardian Tracking entries, but supervisors can add additional comments in a notes field as well if they choose.
On that same note, a change to the “evaluation components” section removes a previous requirement that what evaluators write on the notes section of the evaluation form “originate from supporting documentation of the employee’s performance during the review period.” Also removed were requirements that “supporting documentation shall specify specific examples of performance, not generalizations” and that the “supporting documentation shall be generated at or near the time of occurrence.”
