On Monday, Feb. 8, Inweekly requested from the City of Pensacola copies of the “notification sent to city employees regarding changes to the HR policy manual regarding the appeal process.”
The paper had discovered the City’s Human Resources Department had not uploaded the new HR policy manual that changed the steps of disciplinary action, modified the appeal process, and eliminated the independent personnel board until four hours after Pensacola Fire Chief Matt Schmitt and Deputy Fire Chief Joe Glover were placed on paid administrative leave on Feb. 2. See PR_-W001155-020416.
City Administrator Eric Olson has said the the changes were made in December, but “due to an administrative delay that was unavoidable” were not uploaded until Feb. 2.
Late Thursday afternoon, the City of Pensacola responded to the paper’s public record request:
“The City of Pensacola has reviewed its files and has determined there are no records that match your Public Records request as stated.”
The city employees were never notified of these major changes to the HR policy manual, even though the manual states: “As revisions are made, effort will be made to notify employees promptly of such changes through electronic or other means.”
The lack of notification places doubt on the city administrator’s “two box” hypothesis that the administrative leaves and HR manual changes were coincidental.
The HR manual states employees would be notified. Olson said the decision was made in December 2015. He had two months to notify the employees and failed to do it.