BY SUSAN BROWN, Times of Northwest Indiana
sbrown@nwitimes.com
When the city of Valparaiso, where the population is 95 percent white, put out the word it had an opening for a firefighter, there were no minority applicants.
"We were very disappointed," said Karen Marben, the city's human resource director.
Marben said the city is an equal opportunity employer that advertises job vacancies through the area's newspapers and universities.
"There's so little turnover in most departments," Marben said. "If you have so little turnover, it makes it hard to hire."
In Portage, with its 93 percent white population, Human Resources Director Kay Cherepko said any openings are first posted internally, after which the decision comes down to the applicant's skills. The city is developing a new form to be attached to job applications where it can learn more about minority hires.
"But hardly anybody ever leaves," she said.
Schererville Town Manager Robert Volkman said the town, where the population is booming and about 92 percent white, may get only one applicant a week, if that.
In such towns, that was the common refrain when trying to determine if the racial make up of the government work force reflected that of the community.
In some towns, even the question elicited surprise among officials who weren't sure how to respond when asked if their government was measuring up.
Only Highland Town Manager Richard Underkofler suggested checking into the federally-required EEO-4, the form state and local governments must file with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to report hires by gender and race.
Underkofler, in his former post with the town of Mattoon, Ill., had filed not only the EEO-4 but an Equal Employment Opportunity Plan showing how well the town was doing and what it intended to do to improve.
Consultant Tom Dabertin, who now is developing a hiring policy and employee handbook for Lake County, also pointed to the EEO-4 as a tool known to human resource professionals, adding the county's new hiring policy will include affirmative action standards.
But generally, the EEO-4, never mind action plans, can be hard to come by from government, both large and small, in Lake and Porter counties, particularly where human resource departments are not part of the administrative mix.
In Porter County, which has no human resource department, county government officials acknowledged not even being aware the federal government required diversity figures to be filed with the EEOC. No other means of determining the county's work force diversity appeared to be available.
In Hammond, the latest reported federal filing reflected only the full-time work force. Officials said they now are in the process of updating the figures out of concern over their accuracy.
Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. said the issue is something the city is constantly working on.
"At the time I took over, I felt we were deficient (in minority hires) and we made a conscientious effort to improve," he said. "Are we there yet? Not yet, but we're improving."
Since taking office in 2004, McDermott said the city has increased its percentage of minority appointees and employees.
Overall, The Times snapshot of some representative communities reveals a work force in both counties that pretty well reflects the general population of each community.
Hispanics in the area appear to be under-represented, even if only slightly, in the area work force despite being the fastest-growing minority, much as they are nationwide.
That holds true even in East Chicago, where the government work force is 44.1 percent Hispanic compared to a Hispanic population of more than 51 percent.
In mostly black Gary, whites remain over-represented in government by about 5 percent, while blacks fall short by about 5 percent. Yet Hispanics fare better in Gary than anywhere in the nine government entities except for Munster.
The data is compiled from reports filed at the end of 2005, with governments not required to file again until the end of 2007.
In the meantime, Valparaiso already appears to have improved its numbers.
Valparaiso showed no Hispanics in its work force two years ago, but now is reporting one Hispanic on its police force. In addition, four blacks can be found in the police and public works departments.
According to Munster Assistant Town Manager Matthew Fritz, police, fire and public works departments generally are where minorities are likely to be concentrated.