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Bill Klaproth (Host): Meet Wayne Jerman, Cedar Rapid’s Police Chief.

Wayne Jerman (Guest): The Police Department has reached the highest standards of professionalism in that they will maintain the same level, these high standards, with the delivery of quality services.

Host: And Greg Smith. Cedar Rapid’s Fire Chief.

Greg Smith (Guest): It’s not an end, it’s really a journey and we’ve become accredited. We’ve just started the journey, really.

Host: I’m Bill Klaproth and this is Inside Cedar Rapids, a monthly podcast that introduces you to the people, projects and programs of your local government. And on this episode, we talk about both the fire and police departments achieving accreditation on the gold standard in public safety. Chief Jerman and Chief Smith, welcome to the podcast. And I guess I just have to ask gentlemen, which department achieved accreditation first?

Chief Smith: Officially it was the fire department. We achieved accreditation first. We like to joke and we kind of like to badger the police department about that a little bit but in all honesty, we received it last August, I can’t remember the month that Chief Jerman got – the PD got theirs. I think it was back in April. So, I’d say about nine months earlier but quite honestly, both departments had been working at it for quite a long time and just the timing of ours we were fortunate enough for it to work out that we got it first so that we could just have the bragging rights.

Host: How fun. I love it.

Chief Jerman: And the PD is absolutely okay. The fire department did a great job achieving their accreditation and we were very thrilled and happy for them.

Host: Well I’m sure you are both very proud of your achievement. So, let’s learn more about those. Chief Jerman, we are going to talk with you first. So, the police department was awarded full advanced accreditation by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies or CALEA. So, what is involved in earning this accreditation?

Chief Jerman: Well to become accredited by CALEA, it’s a very complex and involved process and we’ve been at it ever since I arrived here in October of 2012. I know the police department had begun pursuing it before my arrival, but I was an assessor earlier in my career and when I arrived here, I just saw that we needed to start over from the beginning. So, we rewrote all of our policies and directives so that they were CALEA compliant and what that means is each policy or activity that the police department is engaged in you have to meet certain standards, national standards that CALEA has set and for advanced accreditation, that’s 484 standards. So, again, it’s quite lengthy when you take those number of standards and you have to put them into policies and the policies have to reflect those standards.

So, that’s just part of what’s involved. And the other part is basically you have to prove that you do what your policies say you do. So, it ranges from evidence collection, evidence storage, property storage, to how you handle money, budgeting, community relations, searches, vehicle operations, training, recruitment, hiring, criminal investigations, administrative investigations. It’s very complex and when an agency achieves accreditation, it think that they can be assured that the community that it serves is assured that we are operating at the highest standards that the other police agencies in the country who have achieved accreditation also operate at that same level.

Host: So, this was a long process covering many, many areas. So, thinking more specifically, can you tell us about one or two of the 484 standards within the program that you are particularly proud of?

Chief Jerman: Well I’m particularly proud of how the staff of the police department was able to rise up and meet the very strict requirements regarding evidence and property. Evidence just doesn’t mean small items that you can either place in an envelope or a small box or whatnot. Sometimes evidence can mean an entire automobile. So, we had to acquire the ability to be able to store all types of evidence to again, comply with the CALEA standards and meet the standards for what the court requires for chain of custody and whatnot. So, prior to beginning this journey, the police department did not have a facility such as that so, a number of police department personnel were able to identify and acquire an area that did satisfy this standard and requirements.

Host: So, was there anything that surprised you about the process?

Chief Jerman: Well again, as I mentioned, I was an assessor so I wasn’t waiting for an I got you moment. But I guess I was more pleasantly surprised with how smooth and really seamless the actual onsite and the accreditation process actually was. That was surprising and I can’t give enough credit to the accreditation manager for the police department, a civilian, Miss Sherri Hawkins, and then the accreditation officer Mike Haus. They worked religiously just focusing on us acquiring accreditation.

Host: Right. So, from your point of view Chief Jerman, why do you think it was important for the Cedar Rapids Police Department to achieve this accreditation?

Chief Jerman: For any organization to become accredited, it’s kind of like the stamp of approval and again, not every police department chooses to pursue accreditation but those who do, and those who achieve it, can place themselves along side other accredited departments that you know everything that you are doing is meeting the national standards. And these standards, again, are constantly under review and improved and again, that’s what part of being accredited is a commitment to constant process improvement.

Host: So, then Chief Jerman, what is your future vision for the department?

Chief Jerman: The easy part is becoming accredited. Believe it or not. The challenge is to becoming reaccredited. So, CALEA requires a reaccreditation every four years but every year, you undergo 20% review of your policies and directives. So, my vision is that four years from now, the department will successfully become reaccredited and why is that more difficult? Well, each one of those 484 standards, the police department has to supply a proof whether it be an actual police report, or a memorandum or some other type of document that they again, prove that they do what they say they do for 484 standards, for each of the four years that they are being reevaluated or reaccredited.

So, this is a fulltime pursuit. So, it’s not just something that once the accreditation or review period is coming up you gear up for it, you have to constantly be looking at again, process improvement each year, 20% and we don’t get told what 20% of the policies or directives are going to be reassessed until shortly before that time. So, I like that because it makes us want to be on our A game all the time.

Host: So, with this accreditation at such a high level, is there anyway to build on this?

Chief Jerman: I don’t know necessarily build on it, certainly an achievement to become accredited but maintaining that accreditation again, shows and improves your commitment to excellence. And I think that’s what maintaining your accreditation does is that you are committed to overall excellence.

Host: Absolutely. Well thank you Chief Jerman and let’s bring in Chief Greg Smith of the Fire Department. So, Chief Smith, the fire department was recognized by the Center for Public Safety Excellence and the Commission on Fire Accreditation International as achieving accreditation. So, tell us how did you earn this distinction?

Chief Smith: Cedar Rapids Fire Department of note first, is one of only five departments in Iowa and 266 worldwide who have earned accreditation from the Commission of Fire Accreditation International and so that is really the peer assessed benchmark for fire and emergency services. But the self-assessment portion of that is divided into ten different categories. That’s going to include operations, governance administration, human resources, finance, it’s going to include strategic planning, assessment and planning and we assessed, researched, evaluated the performance indicators that we have to write to require us to look at our past performance, what we are doing now our present performance and what our future plans are. So, we have to write to what we historically have done with that or currently doing and then how we plan to improve upon that in the future or if it’s adequate for what our needs are right now in order to meet the performance indicators.

And speaking of those, we are judged on 252 different performance indicators and included in that there are 86 core competencies to which you have to comply with all 86 core competencies. But the 252 performance indicators quite honestly dome of those you can say if you have identified an area to where you are deficient with that, you develop a plan to achieve that in the future and a little bit similar to what Chief Jerman had stated is that this is a continuous improvement model and upon reaccreditation, it’s more stringent so they are looking for you to make those improvements.

So, you kind of get a baseline, get in at the ground level and then you build upon that. But based upon that, there’s a self-assessment manual. We had to write a standard of cover. We had to have a strategic plan in place which we had and then a peer review team or actually prior to that you are assigned a mentor who reads through your performance indicators, identifies deficiencies, identifies gaps or what you need to explain further and then gives you feedback on that. A peer review team, we had four people on our peer review team here for four days and they review everything, all of your documents. They interviewed people. They talked to everybody within the department, city employees, elected officials and members of the community and then they make a recommendation, or they write a report on strategic recommendations and then specific recommendations that you have to achieve and we immediately started working towards those.

In the meantime, they decide whether they are going to recommend you for accreditation or not. We were recommended for accreditation and then we sat in front of the Commission on Fire Accreditation International Board and then we were interviewed for about 20 minutes based upon that report and then the board votes on accreditation and we achieved that last August. So, August of 2018. So, we are coming up on a year.

Host: All right. Took a couple of notes here. Ten different categories, 252 performance indicators, with 86 core competencies. Holy cow. So, Chief Smith, I mean what made you interested in working to achieve this award for the department? This couldn’t have been easy.

Chief Smith: Well quite honestly, it’s the idea of continuous improvement and that’s what I like about the model is that it’s built upon that idea of continuous improvement for the organization and quite honestly, continuous improvement for CFAI in general. I think we are on the ninth edition is what we had to write to, but they reevaluate and adapt or add to or delete performance indicators based upon best practices in the industry.

And so one example would be that hasn’t been in previous manuals but looks like it will be in the tenth edition is something dealing with mental health aspects of the job related stresses. So, they really looked towards the future and that’s what was of interest to me. Yes, it’s what you are doing now and it’s showing that you a competent department now but it’s also the idea of continuous improvement and then it formalizes that process of continuous improvement and then it’s also a great way to measure yourself or your organization against the best practices of departments across the country.

So, it kind of forces you into maybe communications with some other accredited agencies and really just improves that processes of your organization.

Host: So, I could see where this would be a great tool to measure yourself against the best. So, let me ask you the same thing I asked Chief Jerman. Can you tell us about one or two of the standards or performance indicators within the program that your department excelled at?

Chief Smith: Well I would go a little bit more broad than that if that’s okay with you and the two that really stood out to me, I think and stood out to the peer review team were the strategic planning that we had in place. We didn’t just write a strategic plan to get one in place for accreditation. We had started strategic planning I think it was probably eight or nine years ago. In 2010, 2011, we developed our first strategic plan for the organization that was five year plan. Upon the expiration I’ll call it, of that plan, we were moving into our second plan and had that in place when the peer review team arrived on site.

And so, we had some good processes already in place. We had kind of done the learning through the first phase of the strategic planning or the first one that we drafted, and we got better at it on the second one. I think that showed. And then the assessment and planning. The methodology that the organization has developed with resource deployment, emergency service zones and that’s kind of internally to our department but I will say the other thing too is that impressed the peer review team is just the relationships that we have with our other city departments. And that’s just a credit to the city of Cedar Rapids itself, the community. We are talking water supply; we have a good relationship with our water utility department or water department. We have great relationship with our joint com or dispatch which is housed within the police department, finance, some of the finance practices that are in place really, there were several performance indicators we didn’t even have to write to. We just showed that the finance department had a certain credential and then that qualified for four or five different performance indicators within the section.

So, that just shows the work that our other departments within the city do and how we integrate well with them. And I thin that impressed the peer review team as well.

Host: So, what was the most difficult part of the process? This certainly doesn’t sound like it was easy.

Chief Smith: No, it certainly wasn’t. And I think it was documenting and the writing and gathering of the data to respond to the performance indicators. When you look at writing to a performance indicator, you draft to it and you write to it and then you have to prove that you are doing what you say that you do. And that’s probably the glaring thing that I noticed through the process is certainly, there were things that we said yeah, we do that, we do it pretty well and we can show it. And then we saw some things that we were like no we really don’t do that; we need to develop that process. But what became difficult was, there were some of the performance indicators where we certainly looked at them and said we do that and then when we went to prove it through exhibits, we couldn’t provide the documentation. So, we did it but it’s kind of the old adage, if you don’t document it, it didn’t happen.

So, we had to develop those processes to show that we were doing some of those things and that’s what just having to prove it with the right exhibits, the right documentation became, I don’t want to say a challenge, but it certainly did present some challenging aspects for it when there were certainly things that we did, we were proud of and then we forgot to document them along the way or through these years. so, I would say that was the most significant.

And then just gathering the data for the standard of cover and run response times and that type of stuff proved challenging as well.

Host: So, Chief Smith for the community, how does fire department accreditation benefit the citizens of Cedar Rapids?

Chief Smith: It pushes the department to a higher standard and certainly and I’ve spoken to this a number of times, is there are certainly things behind the scenes that the public – you know we are a better department but the public is not going to feel that day to day on some of the things and that’s certainly true and that’s working better with human resources, working better with finance, having better policies in place to just protect the department, procedures and processes in order to make sure that we are doing things right. But it’s also one of the things that came out of this that shows that we are better is that since we started the process, we’ve had about a 30 second improvement in our response times. And part of that is things that we put in place, but part of that is paying attention to the data, paying attention to our statistics and the 30 second improvement in response times on average, now this is on average, so it doesn’t correlate directly but a fire doubles in size every 30 seconds roughly. So, if we can get to a fire 30 seconds earlier, we are fighting half the amount of fire that we otherwise would have. And then likewise you want to have oxygen to a patient who is not breathing within five minutes or start CPR within five minutes obviously the more time we can cut off that to get to that patient, the higher the rate of survival. So, that’s what the public is going to see are things like that overall.

But the biggest things are just going to be tracking and watching of our trends helps improve our focus that we can identify when we have shortcomings so that we can address and fix those shortcomings.

Host: Those are some great data points and yeah, every second counts. So, what’s next now that you’ve achieved accreditation? Like I asked Chief Jerman, is there a way for you to build on this?

Chief Smith: We certainly, now that we are accredited, it’s kind of like the real work begins. We did a lot of work but here’s where the real work begins. We have to submit an accreditation compliance report each year. Reaccreditation happens every five years on the fire side of it. but we do the compliance report each year and then the biggest thing is just going to be obviously maintaining accreditation, that’s the easy answer but just improve, prepare for the next accreditation cycle but improve our organization and look back. And the purpose of accreditation is it’s a great feeling, we are proud of it, we have the plaque hung up on the wall. We ordered stickers that we have on our apparatus to say that we are accredited but we didn’t do it for the sticker. That’s the feel good stuff.

But the biggest thing is just going back and continuing to look at the performance indicators and saying how can we improve our organization going further. And then the other thing too is just looking at what’s coming ahead with the self-assessment manual changes, what performance indicators we need to change based upon best practices and then just continuous improvement and then just really looking at this as it’s this whole thing, it’s not an end, it’s really a journey and we’ve become accredited, we’ve just started the journey, really.

Host: Chief Smith, that is great. Thank you so much and Chief Jerman we’re going to bring you back in here. We haven’t forgot about you. So, I’m going to ask you each the same question as we wrap up. Final thoughts on your accreditation and that you want to say to the citizens of Cedar Rapids. Anything else you want them to know about this?

Chief Jerman: I think the citizens of Cedar Rapids can remain proud and confident that their fire department, but the police department as well has reached the highest standards of professionalism and that they will maintain the same levels of these high standards with the delivery of quality services to the residents of Cedar Rapids. It is an outstanding police department and it’s outstanding because of the men and women that make up the police department. And CALEA is not just a word, accreditation is not just a word or it’s a concept but it’s the way we operate every day, every hour and on every call. We have the high standards to meet and I think the men and women of this department meet those standards and the people here in Cedar Rapids can rest assured that the men and women of their department will continue to operate at this level.

Host: It’s a way of operating every day. I love how you said that Chief Jerman and thank you so much. Chief Smith, we are going to bring you in. You are the anchor. You are going to wrap it up for us. Same question. What else do you want the citizens of Cedar Rapids to know about the fire department?

Chief Smith: Chief Jerman said it. Said it wonderfully. I think the biggest take away is just that they have a police and fire department and a city government really that just prides itself on doing the best that we can do day to day for the citizens of Cedar Rapids. And that by taking on this journey, this focus of accreditation; is really just a testament and I mean we can certainly operate a fire department without being accredited and we can do a nice job with it.

But the accreditation just really takes it to the highest professional level and it really just forces us to be the best that we can be day in and day out and that drives the focus and will continue to drive that. We’re proud of our accreditation certainly but I think I said it before, is this is, it’s still a journey. Achieving accreditation is not the end, really, it’s the beginning of the journey and that just is continuing to impart upon all of the men and women in the department that we’re under a continuous improvement model. I speak to that when I talk to the crews, when I talk to the rookie classes or the probationary classes we have coming on and it’s just get better every day.

And you can certainly get better every day and we are doing it individually and we expect that, and we are doing it organizationally as well and we’re putting the best fire department we possibly can on the streets every day for the citizens of Cedar Rapids. And we’ll continue to uphold that professionalism and continue to push that forward. And I think it’s going to trend. The accreditation models certainly have been talked about in other departments within the city and it’s certainly a model that we have or the focus that we have just as a city as a whole. That continuous improvement, get better every day mindset.

Host: Well said Chief Smith. Chief Jerman and Chief Smith, thank you both very much.

Chief Smith: Thank you. Appreciate it.

Chief Jerman: You are very welcome. Thank you for having us.

Host: And for more information please visit www.cityofcr.com/podcast. And if you liked what you’ve heard, please share it on your social channels and be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can also check out the full library at www.cityofcr.com/podcast. This is Inside Cedar Rapids. I’m Bill Klaproth. Thanks for listening.