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Tom Jackson is in a 12-step program for recovering sports writers; as part of his rehabilitation, he writes a column centered on the people, politics, passions and peculiarities of Pasco County. Email
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Why Government Doesn’t Work
Posted Feb 25, 2009 by Tom Jackson
Updated Feb 25, 2009 at 11:11 PM
Tuesday’s ruling by Circuit Judge Stanley Mills provides a rare window into how difficult it is to fire government employees, even ones who are hopelessly incompetent, or willfully indifferent, or both.
Edward Tucker, whose 10-year career with the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office ostensibly ended just before dawn on Jan. 26, found a sympathetic ear in Mills.
Never mind a lengthy internal affairs audit establishing serial transgressions by Tucker that, taken as a whole, reveal a deputy more devoted to meal breaks than public safety, and willing to falsify the record to cover his tracks. The judge rebuked the sheriff over a letter dated Oct. 30 that very clearly put Tucker on notice, but failed the test of specificity.
Instead, the letter laid out a broad range of possible disciplinary consequences, up to an including dismissal. Too many options, the judge said.
Really? And that part about possibly being fired didn’t catch his attention? Wow. Tucker is on the record saying he’s a poor record-keeper; add to that an apparent ability to focus. Not, evidently, that it matters, Judge Mills having dismissed the idea that being a government employee relieves one from discerning what is significant in a communication with one’s boss.
Happily, Tucker’s victory was largely pyrrhic. Mills include reinstating Tucker as a remedy, and he wasn’t called on to give an opinion about the charges that led to Tucker’s firing. Still, Mills’ ruling offers fresh insight into the complicated relationship between employer and employee in the modern government workplace, and it isn’t pretty.
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