Yesterday, Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward issued a press release announcing that he was terminating the employment of Fire Chief Matt Schmitt and Deputy Fire Chief Joe Glover “due to a loss of confidence in their ability to lead the Pensacola Fire Department.” The two veteran firefighters had been under an investigation for complaints filed against them by the Chief Human Resource Officer Ed Sisson after the two had filed Equal Employment Opportunity complaints against him and City Administrator Eric Olson. The men had been on paid administrative leave since Feb. 2.
The mayor did not meet with the chiefs to inform them of his decision. He did not provide them copies of the report prepared by Beggs & Lane. He did not give them a chance to discuss the report’s findings. The mayor had Assistant City Administrator Keith Wilkins hand them termination letters.
Mayor Hayward did do interviews with the News Journal and WEAR TV. He told the PNJ, “Tough choices are bound to bring criticism, but it’s my responsibility to make them. I think after you read the report and the way they managed the office you just lose confidence.”
The report is 132 pages with 34 supporting documents. All are available on the city’s Transparent Pensacola page.
The report prepared by attorney Russell Van Sickle states how he was hired. He wrote, “On Friday, January 29, 2016, I was asked to perform an investigation into issues involving the management of the Pensacola Fire Department (PFD) by Interim Fire Chief Matthew Schmitt and Deputy Chief Joseph Glover. It was explained to me that the concerns prompting the need for an investigation were initiated by City of Pensacola Human Resources Officer Edward Sisson.”
While the mayor has told the council and media that the firefighters were not put on leave because of the EEOC complaints, a considerable portion of the report is devoted to the issues Schmitt and Glover filed with the federal government—even though Van Sickle states, “I was not tasked with responding to the charges of discrimination to the EEOC or FCHR, as another law firm was retained for that purpose.”
His explanation for bringing the EEOC complaints into the investigation was: “However, in the course of determining whether the concerns brought forward by Sisson regarding the management of PFD were legitimate, my investigation necessarily included an assessment of any concerns raised by Schmitt and Glover.”
The report has 16 sections. Only six sections are devoted to the complaints by Sisson and portions of those sections address the EEOC complaints. Four sections involve Glover’s EEOC complaint directly. One section discusses the revision of HR Manual to remove the appeal board for disciplinary action, which was not part of Sisson’s complaint or the EEOC complaints. Another section involves “Child Passenger Safety Car Seat Program,” which was run by Fire Marshall David Allen and also not part of any complaint.
Also there is an odd paragraph devoted to proving that attorney Bob Kerrigan had no role in the Van Sickle’s investigation.
Van Sickle wrote both City Attorney Lysia Bowling and Wilkins were given periodic updates of his investigation: “During the investigation, I provided periodic verbal updates to Assistant City Administrator Keith Wilkins and City Attorney Lysia Bowling, including periodically confirming the continued paid leave status for Schmitt and Glover, as the City decided to renew their paid leave status every ten (10) days.”
Wilkins has repeated told the media that he knew very little about the investigation.On March 23, Wilkins appeared on 1620 AM. He said he expected the investigative report within two weeks, but he added, “I don’t know a lot of the detail myself.â€
Van Sickle said that HR Chief Sisson told him why he filed the complaints against the fire chiefs: “Sisson described that the most recent and precipitating event for his concerns involved allegations that Schmitt and Glover intentionally departed from the customary hiring protocol for a new round of firefighters. Sisson described these concerns as only the latest in a series of acts attempting to exclude or antagonize the City’s Human Resources department, and as a consequence he contended that PFD upper management was unnecessarily exposing the City to legal claims.”
Note: The City HR manual has a progressive step policy when it comes to correcting behavior: “City Management is responsible for communicating, whenever practical, deficiencies in job performance and provide direction to employees for taking corrective measures. When correction is necessary, counseling and reprimands are constructive methods of communicating to the employee and conveys the importance of meeting established performance standards and expectations. Adhering to policies and procedures creates a work environment that is positive, satisfying, safe, and productive.” Sisson chose another path for dealing with his concerns.
Here are the complaints made by Sisson:
• Schmitt and Glover intentionally and deceptively deviated from hiring protocol for the recent firefighter hiring round in late January 2016;
• Schmitt and Glover intentionally and deceptively severely retaliated against Edward Deas, an African-American Fire Lieutenant, merely because Deas made a written complaint about Glover;
• Glover poorly managed a “Firefighter Apprenticeship Program,†unnecessarily antagonizing Sisson in the process, where one of the issues was Glover’s alleged poor judgment in renting a BMW 5 series for in-state travel for two persons;
• Glover and Schmitt handled raise requests for the battalion chiefs poorly, and then improperly tried to place the blame on Sisson;
• Glover publicly demeaned Sisson during the Firefighters Annual Awards ceremony; and
• Glover improperly tried to obstruct a random drug test.
Over the next few days, I will delve into each of these complaints. I have requested interviews with Wilkins, Sisson, Van Sickle and Mayor Hayward. I will sit down with one or both of the fire chiefs. I will post more details on each as I sort through the information. Here is a link to the report: Van Sickle.
One section that interested me was Van Sickle’s report on the changes to the HR manual that were not published until after the fire chiefs were placed on leave:
“The City maintains both a disciplinary and administrative appeal process, and, as discussed above, the City’s policies provide that any City employee may make good faith complaints, including complaints regarding discipline. In any event, any act by the City to remove or change any type of disciplinary appeals process would apply to all affected City employees, not merely to Glover or Schmitt. The City provided an analysis and timeline of the decision to remove the previously existing disciplinary process for my informational purposes. The evidence shows that the amendments to the policy about which Glover complains were initiated on November 25, 2015.”
Note: Glover’s EEOC is a federal complaint and doesn’t involve the city’s disciplinary and administrative appeal process.
Here is the timeline the city gave Van Sickle. Â Please note are no emails that support this timeline. How do I know? I made a public request for them and only received a handful. (XVII_Timeline)
What Sisson did provide is a record of changes he made to a draft of the HR manual on Nov. 25 (XVII_Changes)…a week before the city employees were to elect the citizens to serve on the independent appeals board (XVII_Election). On Dec. 1, Sisson sent out an email telling the employees there would be no election held for the independent appeal board (XVII_No_vote).
NO documents were provided to show why Sisson made the changes or show that he communicated the changes to anyone at City Hall. There are no documents showing the mayor approved the changes. There is no explanation why they weren’t given to the employees and not posted to the website until Feb. 2.
In short, the section is a placeholder that doesn’t explain very much, other than how Civil Service Board was abolished.
Stay tuned.