Firefighter recruits barred from graduation in wake of internal investigation

A class of 14 firefighter recruits won’t be allowed to graduate after suspicions of cheating on a written test surfaced last month, a Las Vegas city official said Tuesday.

City spokesman David Riggleman said the findings of an internal investigation, which prompted scrapping the entire recruiting class, will not be made public because investigators are still looking into whether employees were involved.

Riggleman called it a “personnel matter” and would not elaborate. The investigation involving the 14 recruits has concluded, he said.

Riggleman wouldn’t say directly whether the recruits cheated, only that, “The circumstances surrounding the written test process prompted us to not move forward with their graduation.”

How much it cost the city to put the 14 recruits through the 18-week academy was not known, Riggleman said.

Officials canceled the Feb. 14 graduation and launched the investigation.

Riggleman said the decision not to certify the recruits had everything to do with reputation and establishing trust with the community.

“Integrity is one of the core values of the organization as a whole. It is also one of the core values of the Fire Department,” Riggleman said. “We took this thing very seriously.”

The internal investigation was requested by the state fire marshal.

The fire marshal’s office handles testing and certification for most of Nevada’s fire agencies, including the Las Vegas Fire Department.

Under the voluntary certification program, the fire marshal’s office sends written tests with randomly chosen questions to the agency, which administers the tests and sends them back to the fire marshal’s office for grading.

Riggleman said the recruits who went through the latest academy will be allowed to reapply with the city’s Fire Department.

But those recruits will have to compete against other applicants and won’t be allowed to immediately return to the academy.

The city is considering a “lateral academy” in which people with past firefighting experience or paramedics can apply, Riggleman said.

He added such an academy would last 10 to 11 weeks and would depend on receiving enough applicants.

The 14 recruits in this past academy were all rookies.

Public safety is not expected to be compromised, Riggleman said.

But firefighters probably will have to pick up slack in the form of overtime.

“It’s imperative that we pay attention to that overtime,” Riggleman said. “That will be something we have to monitor.”

Contact reporter Antonio Planas at aplanas@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4638.