2 Tacoma Fire Department recruits face cheating allegations

Two Tacoma Fire Department recruits are accused of cheating on an exam after a lieutenant found they had copies of the questions and answers beforehand.

Deputy Chief Toryono Green recommended the two recruits be terminated. Disciplinary actions from Chief James Duggan are pending, spokesman Joe Meinecke said this week.

The incident is detailed in a Jan. 20 Tacoma Fire investigative report, released Monday after a public records request by The News Tribune.

According to the report, the recruits told Tacoma Fire investigators they were given the exam questions and answers by an instructor with Remote Medical International.

The recruits had separately taken an emergency medical technician class from the Seattle-based company in 2015 to improve their chances of being selected for competitive recruit positions with the Fire Department.

Remote Medical International told Tacoma Fire investigators that their instructor did not know that the information given to the recruits came from a bank of test questions, and thought it was additional study materials.

Tacoma Fire uses the same pool of test questions for classes in its academy.

“Due to an administrative error, current test bank questions were inadvertently given to some students,” Remote Medical International spokeswoman Leah George said in a statement.

“RMI worked with the Washington state Department of Health and the relevant county medical program directors to investigate this issue and was subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing by the Department of Health and the county medical program directors.”

A Department of Health spokesman verified that Remote Medical International and Tacoma Fire completed an investigation.

The lieutenant who uncovered the problem found the questions and answers on the recruits’ department-issued thumb drives while he was adding study material to them.

One of the recruits also had cellphone photos of exam questions, which is against the policies of Tacoma Fire and Remote Medical International, the report said.

No statement from either recruit explaining their actions was in the report.

Tacoma Professional Firefighters Union President Ryan Mudie denied that the two recruits, who were one week into their new jobs, had cheated.

“They went to a school to better their knowledge,” he said. “They did not take any material into this test.”

According to the report, the pair shared the information Dec. 15 with their 14 recruit academy classmates. That was not discovered until after recruits took their first exam, made up of the same questions they had obtained.

A new exam was administered after the discovery.

No further action was taken against the other recruits in the class because investigators could not determine whether they knew what they had or how much they used the information.

Union president Mudie said the two recruits in trouble with the Fire Department, who are still in the academy, did not do anything unethical.

“They didn’t compromise the test itself because when they retook that (new) test the same day, they passed with flying colors,” he said.

Recruits are on a yearlong probationary period, including the 13-week full-time academy classes, and make $1,152.50 per week. After graduating, recruits are assigned to fire stations and do field work while continuing testing.

This story was originally published March 8, 2016 at 4:27 PM with the headline "2 Tacoma Fire Department recruits face cheating allegations."