Pensacola City Administrator Eric Olson went on radio yesterday to explain the city placing its fire chief and deputy chief on paid administrative leave while the city’s law firm, Beggs & Lane, investigates Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaints filed against the administrator and his Chief Human Resources Officer.
He said, “Anytime the city receives an EEOC complaint our insurance carrier is notified. When our insurance carrier is notified, our insurance carrier then takes one of the attorneys that it has on retainer to check into the matter. In this case, it happened to be Rob Larkin from Allen, Norton & Blue.â€
He said that Larkin advised that the fire chief and deputy chief be placed on administrative leave and the city retain an outside counsel to conduct an investigation.
On the changes to the personnel manual–that eliminated the independent personnel board— that were uploaded to the city’s website four hours after the two chiefs were escorted out of city hall:
“Civil service went away under the new charter,†said Olson. “What we had was this legacy HR procedure that we felt we don’t need, and we can address the same concerns in a different more streamlined fashion and still give what we want to give every employee—which is a fair, equitable hearing if they’ve got an appeal.â€
Inweekly polled several HR expert, attorneys and officials with other local government agencies about these statements. If Olson’s explanations are accurate, they warned the city may be subject to lawsuits.
1. Placing an employee on paid administrative after filing an EEOC complaint: “This is the exact opposite thing you want to do,” said a government official. “You don’t want any perception that you are punishing or retaliating against the employee.” EEOC complaints aren’t uncommon, and government agencies may deal with several during a year. To place an employee on leave and letting those he or she accuses remain on the job sends a “chilling effect” on the rest of the workforce. One attorney said, “It’s like the city is begging the EEOC to come after it.”
It was suggested that Inweekly request a list of all the EEOC complaints from city employees over the past year. The paper should see how many others have been placed on administrative leave and what the insurance carrier recommended for each. The public record request was filed yesterday.
2. Hiring a Beggs & Lane attorney as the independent counsel to review the matter: “Beggs & Lane is a fine firm, but no one on this earth would consider them independent. They represent the mayor in his federal grand jury investigation and handle many of the city’s lawsuits.”
3. The Personnel Board is not a ‘Legacy HR procedure’: The independent board was not part of the HR manual until 2014 after the Civil Service Board was eliminated. The unions have collective bargaining agreements. The Florida Legislature was told the independent board would be established as part of the appeal process for non-union employees. It’s in the testimony given to the local delegation.
4. Not notifying the employees of HR handbook changes. For most companies, employees may not be notified of minor changes to the HR manual until the end of the year. However, major changes, like amending the disciplinary steps and appeal process, should have been sent out to the employees before publishing the new manual on the website. Employees should have been asked to sign forms stating they read the changes to avoid any confusion if a disciplinary issue arose.
Transparent companies and agencies involve the employees in drafting the changes. Inweekly has requested all documentation on the changes and the metadata of the source document to learn the history of these changes.
5. Who is in charge of investigation and is something else being investigated The fire chief and deputy chief were placed on leave with no explanation of why. They were not told what was being investigated. Assistant Keith Wilkins provided no information and told the News Journal he had no knowledge what the investigation involved. Yesterday, Olson said Wilkins is in charge of it. Is the EEOC the only thing being investigated? If so, why did city officials want them out of the fire station? Several experts are worried about the lack of due process.
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Former City Councilwoman Maren Deweese has questioned the truthfulness of Olson’s claim that the elimination of the personnel board came because it was deemed unnecessary. She has written a different version on her blog that says city leaders didn’t like the nominations to the board:
In a senior management meeting held during this time frame, Sisson (Chief Human Resource Officer) stated to the entire Senior staff that there “was a nominee for the Personnel Board that we all know we can’t have that individual be on the board. We can’t let that happen”.
Stay tuned.