The McHenry County Merit Commission Wednesday voted to hire a Streamwood company to test candidates for McHenry County Sheriff’s Department jobs.
The move to hire the outside testing agency is meant to ensure that the Sheriff’s Department does not discriminate against female or minority job candidates. The department was sued in 1994 by the U.S. Justice Department for allegedly harassing and failing to hire women.
The Streamwood-based company Check Out Personal Stats will begin administering the candidate tests in the next 90 days, said Al Querhammer, chairman of the Merit Commission.
It was not clear how many deputies the Sheriff’s department might hire and how many of them might be women, Querhammer said.
The department has one female officer among the 62 deputies and supervisors in its patrol division. It has about 30 women among the 100 employees of its jail and communications divisions.