The Urbana Civil Service Commission approved initiating the police sergeant promotional process at a meeting Thursday.

Urbana Police Chief Matt Lingrell said with the recent retirement of Sgt. John Purinton the Urbana Police Division was seeking approval to begin the process of filling the vacancy through a promotional process.

Applications to participate in the sergeant’s promotional process are due to the city director of administration via Liela Anderson in the human resource department, 205 S. Main St., by 3 p.m. on Nov. 27.

Lingrell said the division has 10 employees eligible to apply.

As part of the promotional process, candidates will undergo a two-part civil service test in January. A tentative date to certify an eligible and certified eligible list is Feb. 8, 2016.

The anticipated appointment date is on or before March 7, 2016.

Also during the meeting, the commission made changes to the eligible and certified eligible list for entry-level patrol officers.

Lt. Seth King said there was an error in the original list the commission approved in August, causing one candidate to be higher than the other. The commission approved switching the ranking of the two candidates.

In August, the commission also approved a certified eligibility list with the top five candidates. King asked to remove three candidates from the list as two were rejected and one withdrew from the process.

With the removal of the three candidates, the commission also approved an eligible list with seven candidates. The seven candidates in order of highest to lowest scores are Cade R. Hunt, Casey N. Evans, Luke A. Hiltibran, Mark J. Bennett, Kevin J. Richardson, Bradley M. Sealey and Robert A. R. Beam.

Following Purinton’s retirement, Lingrell said the division’s staffing is “dangerously low” at 16 officers. He added the division is budgeted for 19 officers and is working to fill these spots but needs to find a way to get back to having 23 officers as they did from 1991 to 2010.

Lingrell noted the division is currently in the process of hiring a new officer this week and are processing through another candidate.