For 40 years, an agreement with the federal government was supposed to guide hiring practices at the Syracuse Fire Department.

But decades later, minority hiring still hasn’t reached the requirements.  

“Our goal is to find the best candidates,” said Syracuse Fire Chief Michael Monds. “We’re always looking at diversity to try and make the department better in that category.”

Monds said they’ve hired more women and people of color over the years, but there’s always room for improvement.

“The more diversity you have, the better off the department is going to be, but you have to be qualified and want to do the job,” said Monds.

A 1980 consent decree said Africans Americans should make up 25 percent of the fire department. But, Monds says they’re just below those standards at about 18 percent.

“We have 338 firefighters,” said Monds. “We have 61 black firefighters, 13 females. Nine of them are white females, four of them are black females. We have one Hispanic captain. There are a couple Hispanic firefighters."

Monds said the percentage of females exceeds the national average, at about 4 percent, but they’re always looking to hire more.

The consent decree also said African Americans should make up 10 percent of each rank: fire lieutenant, fire captain, district fire chief and deputy fire chief. However, Monds said they are just shy of that goal.

He said in the last couple of years, progress has been made. In 2018, he became the first Black fire chief in the department’s 143-year history.

In terms of residency, about 40 percent, or 137 firefighters, live in the city.

At Tuesday’s public safety meeting, Monds told common councilors that recruitment is the biggest issue and costs money.

“The highest priority in the department is to save lives and property, and if we had the funding to do both, that’s great,” said Monds. “But when you have to choose, you almost have to put the resources out on the streets.”

“As a city, we have work to do,” said Chol Majok, a Syracuse common councilor. “In this case, African Americans need to be in the fire department. The number we set, 25 percent, which is less than the city's population, we’re not even meeting that. Financially, yes that’s a challenge, but there are a lot of things that will require effort. We have to go back to the community and to the people that people listen to and model their way through.”

Monds said he’s trying to find the best way to attract more individuals for the job. He’s also on committees where he focuses on reforming the civil service and promotion tests to make sure they reflect the position.

Monds hopes to hire about 25 people this year.