NORTHAMPTON — A former detective sergeant who claimed she was passed up for promotions for years based on her gender has reached a $25,000 settlement with Northampton after the case went to a mediator.
The agreement comes nearly three years after Anne M. McMahon, a 22-year veteran of the Northampton Police Department, filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, and in the aftermath of a frenzy of promotions within the department in recent years.
The state agency closed the case in February after learning the matter had been resolved. The city’s insurance company paid out the settlement, according to the mayor’s office.
McMahon, of Florence, and her attorney, Thomas A. Kenefick III, of Springfield, separately declined to comment on the details of the settlement, citing a confidentiality clause. The settlement agreement states McMahon cannot publicize or disclose its terms, and other information related to the case, including with the news media.
“It was a very sharply contested case,” Kenefick said. “We settled the dispute.”
Meantime, the Police Department in August 2015, overhauled several policies relating to its promotional process, including how candidates are interviewed and selected. The changes expand the criteria by which candidates are considered for promotions to sergeant and lieutenant and eliminated a previously used weighted system for promotion that was based heavily on test scores. Testing for lieutenant vacancies also was eliminated.
The policies were amended one month after Police Chief Jody Kasper succeeded former police chief Russell P. Sienkiewicz.
Kasper said amending the policies was a priority for her when she took over as chief, and she began working on them while a captain. The changes were made in collaboration with the department’s unions and other supervisory officers and were unrelated to any cases involving promotions, she said.
“They’re very important positions,” Kasper said Tuesday. “I wanted to be able to get rid of that weighted system and be able to use these other selection categories.”
“I just wanted to make sure it was reflective of best practices,” she added.
In her complaint with MCAD, obtained through a public records request, McMahon alleged she had been passed up for promotions on at least four occasions over six years despite being more qualified than male officers who landed those jobs.
In the first two cases, she had scored highest on standardized test scores, which are handled by an outside testing agency. She had a higher educational background and , in some cases, more experience and time on the job, though she was not chosen for three open lieutenant positions, according to the May 2013 complaint.
When seeking a promotion to detective lieutenant in 2013, McMahon had hoped to use a previous passing test score of 70 as test scores were valid in the department for two years, though she was told by former supervising officers that she would have to retake the test.
When she did, she was told she failed with a score of 65, though other male officers had been promoted in the past with scores in the 60s, including one officer who was promoted to sergeant with a score of 62, according to the complaint. It is not entirely clear what scores were considered passing grades during the various written examinations referred to in the complaint, however.
“ … When Ms. McMahon has been passed over for promotion previously, even with a passing score on her examination, males who were not as qualified as herself were promoted but she was not,” Kenefick wrote in the MCAD complaint.
The complaint alleges that McMahon’s former supervising officers assured her that, “had she passed the test, she would have been promoted to detective lieutenant.”
In her final year and after an appeal of her testing that her attorney described in documents as “an exercise in futility,” McMahon was reassigned from the detective bureau to supervise a patrol shift. She went on injured leave in May 2014, and retired in December 2015.
The newly amended policy on testing, which now only applies to sergeant vacancies, provides detailed procedures for the notice and posting of exams and specifically defines scores and how they are used to select candidates.
“We wanted to make it really clear when we call for an exam,” Kasper said.
In addition to considering test scores, educational background, and job experience, the current policies for promotion also examine an officer’s supervisory evaluations on his or her performance and promotion potential; sick leave and disciplinary records; attitude toward the department and police work; and work ethic and initiative, among other areas.
“These were all issues I wanted to clarify in the promotional process so we’re all on the same page with unions and supervisors,” Kasper said, adding that as an accredited police department with the Massachusetts Police Accreditation Commission, “there’s an expectation that our policies are the best that they can be.”
Mayor David Narkewicz declined to comment on the specifics of McMahon’s case and settlement agreement, but said he was aware Kasper had been working on amending the policies for promotions with the former chief while a police captain.
“She has worked to update that promotion policy and I’m confident the policy as it’s been revised, reflects the modern needs of the department,” he said.
Dan Crowley can be reached at dcrowley@gazettenet.com.