The police department had 42 officers when West Valley City incorporated in 1980.
The department is now in the process of hiring 20 new officers, which will bring the badge count to 122 by next year.And with the swelling officer count, Police Chief Dennis Nordfelt has initiated a change in the command structure that has resulted in a departmentwide shake-up.
Thirty-four officers have tested for sergeant, nine applied for lieutenant's post and six are seeking the newly added rank of captain.
Nordfelt said adding the rank of captain to the department will bring the structure in line with other departments of similar size.
Promotions to captain will go to two of the department's four lieutenants and the department's two assistant chiefs, who currently have the civil-service rank of lieutenant. The department will create three watch commander positions for lieutenants, inviting promotions for three department sergeants, which will in turn create sergeant's openings for three officers.
New positions on the ladder have quite a few West Valley officers studying procedure and polishing their brass.
The city decided to use a combination of examinations required by civil-service guidelines and "assessment centers" to test the promotion candidates.
Testing played the biggest role in the competition for sergeant, where 17 of the 34 made the cut after the test.
The assessment center process for all three ranks concluded Saturday, when the captain's applicants met with assessment teams, made up of community leaders and law enforcement officers from agencies outside the Salt Lake area. Caldwell said 27 assessors participated altogether, divided in groups to test candidates for each of the three ranks.
Each assessment center consisted of a set of job-related work simulations designed to give candidates the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to perform a variety of tasks, including taking complaints from city residents, disciplining officers and handling press conferences.
Caldwell said promotion candidates prefer the assessment centers to a test-only procedure because they find the process fairer and less arbitrary.