Pima County merit panel doesn't favor workers, report shows

The Sheriff’s Department rehiring of two corrections officers demonstrates a pattern of settling with disciplined employees before a review board rules on their appeals, records show.

Despite claims by the former sheriff that the Pima County Merit System Commission sides with employees when ruling on disciplinary action, the commission chairwoman said that most of the time, the board hasn’t even been given the opportunity to make a decision.

From January 2012 through December 2016, only one of the 17 appeals by sheriff’s employees has resulted in a win for the employee, according to records obtained from the merit commission.

Ten of the appeals were withdrawn by the employees as a result of a settlement with the department either before or while the hearing was in progress.

Three employees accounted for six of the appeals, after the disciplinary action taken against them by the department changed from suspensions to terminations before their hearings, resulting in new appeals being filed.

In the one case where the board sided with an employee, the discipline was only modified, not overturned.

After the department settled with a jail guard fired for excessive force and gave him his job back in December, then-Sheriff Chris Nanos told the Star that in the past several years, the merit commission has overturned a number of cases involving fired or suspended employees, and the department believed the same was going to happen in this case.

Merit commission chairwoman Georgia Brousseau requested the five-year report after the January rehiring of the two jail guards who were fired for lewd behavior in front of inmates and staff. Sheriff Mark Napier said the decision to rehire was made after the department’s legal advisers determined there was a good chance the merit board would side with the employees.

In a Jan. 11 letter sent to county officials, Brosseau wrote it’s the longstanding practice of the commission to periodically review its work and provide the county with a summary document of all the appeals filed by county employees and the results of those appeals.

“Given that public opinion often incorrectly regards the results of the Merit System decisions and actions, we have found this document to be helpful in correcting that information,” Brousseau wrote in the letter. “Worth noting (is) that in the last five years, the county has been willing to settle during an appeal and to not risk the completion of the case.”

Calling that decision a gamble, Brousseau said the county has no reason to complain about the merit commission when it chooses to settle before the hearing.

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Including the Sheriff’s Department cases, 38 appeals have been filed in the last five years by employees in 11 county departments, such as health, elections and transportation.

Nearly 58 percent of the appeals were withdrawn, either due to settlement with the county or the employee’s decision to abandon the appeal. Of the 42 percent of cases heard by the commission, only one resulted in a totally sustained appeal, or an employee win.

“I’m very protective of this system,” Brousseau told the Star. “It’s there to make sure employees are given a clean shot, and for county taxpayers to be sure that county management doesn’t engage in abuse of its employees.”

Brousseau said the assumption by county legal advisers that the board will generally rule in favor of employees is inaccurate.

“We do not make up our minds until we get down to the end of a hearing,” she said. “We listen to and question testimony and look at all the exhibits.”

After every meeting in which the commission has made a ruling, it tells the department representative what went into the decision and what the county did wrong in its disciplinary action against the employee.

Brousseau, who has been on the merit commission for 25 years and is in her 17th year as chairwoman, said that during her tenure, the number of appeals has drastically declined.

In previous years, more than 30 appeals had been filed, but statistics provided to the commission showed that about 90 percent of the hearings resulted in the commission dismissing the appeals.

Although no single explanation of why the number of appeals dropped, one possible reason is improved management of departments and a better understanding of the disciplinary process, Brousseau said.

“Facts are what we’re looking for in these hearings,” Brousseau said. “From there, we use our common sense, experience and knowledge of precedence in Pima County to make our decisions.”