Equal Employment Opportunity Plan

Policy Statement

It is the continuing policy of the Port Orange Police Department to be firmly committed to affording equal employment opportunity to qualified individuals regardless of race, color, gender, religion, national origin or disability status throughout the employment practice, including but  not limited to recruiting, hiring training, compensation, benefits, promotions, transfers, layoffs, discipline and other terms, conditions and privileges of employment. The department shall continue to provide  its members a viable means for communicating and resolving grievances and complaints regarding unlawful discriminatory employment practices. Any employee of the Port Orange Police Department who fails to comply with this policy is subject to appropriate disciplinary action.

Objectives
The Port Orange Police Department continues to be committed to making its workforce profiles more closely reflect the labor force available not only in the City of Port Orange, but the Daytona Beach metropolitan service area as well. The department has established the following objectives based on the utilization analysis.

Because females are underutilized in the Protective Services and  Para-professional workforce, it is our goal to increase representation by evaluating our recruitment and promotional practices to ensure that  females and minorities receive equal opportunity to secure employment  and advancement opportunities. We will review hiring practices and  promotional requirements to ensure no unnecessary barriers exist that  would deny females equal employment opportunity with the agency.  Specifically, the department will continue to try to attract qualified female (and minority candidates) applicants for the Protective Services positions.

Steps to Achieve Objectives
Recruiting and hiring is a year-round function at the Port Orange Police  Department. We will maintain these ongoing recruitment efforts to hire and promote females and minority males by:

• Continuing to advertise employment opportunities on the police department web site.
• Maintaining intensive recruitment efforts through job fairs and classroom visits at central Florida colleges (including a local minority college) and criminal justice training centers.
• Recruitment literature and displays have been significantly enhanced and will continue to include photographs depicting uniformed officers consisting of diverse gender and ethnicity.
• Continuing to offer opportunities and sponsorships when possible for females and minorities to be hired as civilian recruits while attending local police academies.
• Encouraging and providing training for more females and minorities to be role models and coaches by becoming field training officers.
• Continuing to include career counseling for all employees, particularly women and minorities, at the annual evaluation conference and throughout the year.
• Reviewing selection and promotion for ranking sworn positions to ensure that these practices do not in any way tend to discriminate or lessen the opportunity for advancement of women and minority males.
• Encouraging females and minorities to take advantage of department training policies that provide for career enhancing courses and seminars at local Criminal Justice Training Centers, and reimbursement for college course work.
 • Providing EEO training to supervisors and managers on EEO policies.