-Judge Nicholas Garaufis
(Robert Kalfus)
The city could get socked with a bill of up to $128 million to compensate minority applicants who were rejected because of discriminatory hiring practices, a federal judge said yesterday.
Judge Nicholas Garaufis first set the compensation pool at $65 million three weeks ago but revised the figure to factor in the “total gross amount of lost wages” for applicants who took the FDNY exam in 1999 or 2002 but were not hired.
Notice letters will go out to some 2,200 test takers, inviting them to apply for compensation, attorneys said.
Garaufis appointed four attorneys, all ex-prosecutors, as “special masters” to oversee how the “back pay” is divvied up to as many as 2,200 black and Latino would-be firefighters.
“It has been in the city’s power to prevent or remedy the need for damages proceedings for a decade, and it has not done so,” Garaufis wrote, calling his decision a “consequence of the city’s decision to ignore clear violations of federal law.”
He further proposed that the FDNY immediately hire the 186 black and 107 Latino firefighters who met the entry requirements between 2001 and 2008 but were never invited to the Fire Academy.
“This is a great victory for those who have been excluded from serving our city because of their race,” said Capt. Paul Washington, a past president of the Vulcan Society, the fraternal group of black firefighters that filed the original lawsuit five years ago.
Garaufis rejected arguments from the city’s attorney to postpone any action until their appeal against his ruling that the FDNY hiring process is discriminatory plays out.
“We believe the court’s latest opinion is erroneous and, in any event, is the first step in a lengthy process,” said city Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo. “When all the proceedings have been completed, the damages, if any, that the city will have to pay will be far less than $128 million.”
Virtually any minority test taker, as long as his or her written test score was higher than 25 out of 100, may qualify for compensation.
In past hiring cycles, applicants typically needed to get at least a 95 for a realistic chance of being hired.
Only those claimants who could not pass a criminal background check or who had serious medical or psychological issues are barred.
An award will essentially subtract the cumulative earned income that the applicant could have earned as a firefighter from what he actually earned over the last decade.
The city has been under court order to boost the hiring, training and promotion of minorities in the 11,200-person department — which is 91 percent white — since Garaufis last year found a “pattern and practice of discrimination against black firefighter candidates.”
The city has said Garaufis “lost any semblance of neutrality” while overseeing the case and in the past accused him of taking on “the roles of witness and advocate.”
Additional reporting by Philip Messing