Fire test shared from memory

Officials say tactic long a study aid; State rules prohibit re-creating exams

For years, groups of Boston firefighters taking promotional exams have engaged in a system of memorizing test questions and compiling them after the test, producing an illicit version of the exam that can be distributed to colleagues for studying, according to state documents.

While they have not branded the practice as cheating, state officials say the tactic violates state civil service exam rules. And now they are taking steps to prevent it from happening in the future.

The system came to light after state officials barred Boston Firefighter John F. Nee Jr. from taking a promotional test this weekend, saying that after an exam last November he had violated a rule prohibiting the copying of test questions. In his appeal of that discipline, Nee said he did not think he had broken any rules.

"I wrote down the questions after the exam to try to get an unofficial list, which the BFD has been doing for 30 years," Nee wrote in a petition filed with the state Civil Service Commission.

Two Boston fire chiefs, including the department's deputy chief in charge of personnel, submitted letters supporting Nee's assertion.

"It has always been past practice, after several exams, for various applicants to remember 6-10 questions each from the initial test and after the exams, meet to compile an informal test," wrote District Chief Michael Guarente, a 32-year veteran of the department.

But the system of memorizing questions and sharing them later appears to be prohibited.

All test-takers sign pledges before taking their exams that they will not share the content of the tests with anyone, even after the test is over, said Paul Dietl, head of the state's Human Resources Division, which administers civil service exams for police and fire departments across the state. And he said that anyone who had access to re-created test copies could gain an unfair advantage in future exams because some questions are reused and all tests cover the same subjects.

Dietl declined to comment specifically about the test-sharing system employed by Boston firefighters, citing the ongoing case before the Civil Service Commission.

Guarente and Michael J. Doherty, deputy chief in charge of personnel, did not respond to messages seeking comment that were left for them by a Fire Department spokesman.

Nee could also not be reached for comment. A phone number listed for him in South Boston is disconnected. He has been a Boston firefighter since 1997 and earned $103,358 last year, according to payroll records.

The Civil Service Commission, after a hearing Monday on Nee's appeal, voted to allow him to take this weekend's promotional test, but it did not issue a final ruling on whether his score would count toward a promotion. The panel could require him to wait until a future exam to qualify for promotion.

The Boston fire lieutenant exam is given about once every two years and is highly competitive, with more than 100 firefighters typically vying for about two dozen openings each year.

State officials decided this year to throw out the results for all 186 Boston firefighters, including Nee, who took an exam for prospective lieutenants last November, after an investigation found that firefighters talked during the exam, brought cellphones into the testing site, and took unusually frequent trips to the men's room. The investigation did not produce enough evidence to prove that specific individuals cheated. The test Saturday is a retest after those results were disqualified.

It is unclear whether Nee's creation and sharing of an informal copy of the test was revealed as a result of that investigation.

One city watchdog group said the admission by Nee and the chiefs is another symptom of an insular culture within the Boston Fire Department that has stymied efforts at change for more than 15 years.

"It's really a sad commentary that the embedded culture of the Fire Department includes a practice in terms of civil service testing that is totally in violation of civil service rules and considers it acceptable," said Samuel R. Tyler, president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, a business-funded organization that has been calling for an overhaul of the department for more than a decade.

Boston Fire Commissioner Roderick Fraser, who has not commented publicly on the testing scandal since it surfaced earlier this year, denounced any type of test-sharing arrangements in a statement this week and said the department supports the Civil Service Commission's decisions in the matter.

"The department does not condone actions that violate the rules of the state Civil Service Commission's testing process," the statement said.

Allegations about testing problems have been among a series of embarrassments for the Fire Department. The department has been under intense scrutiny since last fall, when autopsy results for two firefighters killed in a West Roxbury restaurant fire indicated that one was legally too drunk to drive in Massachusetts and the other had traces of cocaine in his system. Random drug and alcohol testing has since become the central issue in a protracted contract dispute between city officials and the Boston firefighters union, which has refused to accept testing without a significant pay raise.

So far this year, two Boston firefighters have been arrested and charged with drug possession, one for allegedly smoking marijuana in a department vehicle parked in front of a fire hydrant.

Last month, FBI agents delivered a flurry of subpoenas to current and retired firefighters as part of a federal grand jury investigation of Boston firefighters suspected of fraudulently padding their pensions by reporting they suffered disabling injuries while they were filling in for colleagues at higher pay grades.

In his May 12 appeal in which he called sharing test questions common, Nee did not identify the firefighters who collaborated with him to re-create the test. The two chiefs submitted their letters of support last week.

In Doherty's letter, he said Nee's memorizing and sharing the questions "does not involve the copying or removal of any part of the examination booklet from the room."

"I have taken a number of promotional exams, and it is a common practice to try to recreate the exam from memory after leaving the site to determine how you might have done," the personnel chief wrote in his letter on Boston Fire Department stationery.

Guarente suggested that the test re-creations are used to determine which questions may have been unfair and should be disputed. He said they are used as a type of study guide.

"They would also know what areas of the study material they might have to be more diligent at" next time, Guarente wrote, "should their mark from the original exam be not high enough to get the member promoted."

Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com.