It’s difficult not to look at what’s happening in Waconia right now and shake your head:
Minneapolis Star Tribune: “Bar is raised for Waconia to fire public utilities chief”
The question is: What would you be shaking your head about?
Would it be that the City hired and employed for 25+ years a convicted sex offender? Or, would it be that the City Council is now trying to fire an employee who has worked for the City for 25+ years for something he did almost 30 years ago? Or, would it be the public worry and concern this situation has generated? Or, would it be that public leaders are facing some very difficult, and expensive, decisions on this matter?
So what should be done? The Waconia City Attorney says that the employee in question is not an “at will” employee. This means that the employee can only be terminated for “just cause.” That usually means that the employee did something terrible or stupid at work. This employee did something terrible in his personal life 30 years ago. Does that qualify as “just cause” to terminate him in 2009? If the situation there continues to move forward on its current track, it looks like a court may ultimately answer that question.
It’s not impossible to terminate public employees in Minnesota. However, I do think it’s fair to say that the concept of what is fair to the employee is tilted a bit more in favor of the employee than the public employer in our state. In this case, I think the public policy choice for the Waconia City Council is going to come down to this:
A) Keep the guy employed and manage him closely until he retires, resigns or messes up sufficiently in order to fire him legitimately. Annual cost of this option is the $60-70K per year the guy makes in salary + the cost of attorneys. The downside of this option, of course, is that it does not respond to the public concern and furor in the community.
B) Terminate the guy and then probably lose a wrongful termination lawsuit in court and end up paying him $200-$300K + attorney fees – all of which, by the way, would be paid by Waconia property tax payers one way or another. This may soothe the angry people, but only temporarily. They’ll get angry again when the City settles the case midstream or after the court makes its likely judgment.
C) Make a deal with the guy now that allows him to leave his job, which would cool down the political heat in the community. But, this option comes with a cost too. The guy has an attorney, and he’s a good one. This option doesn’t come free. And when Waconia tax payers understand that they paid this guy a cash settlement to leave employment, they’ll probably be unhappy about that.
Making public personnel decisions is difficult during stressful times. It’s even more difficult when those decisions are considered and made in an angry political atmosphere. That’s always the most expensive atmosphere in which to make a public personnel decision. Unfortunately, I think the people of Waconia are about to discover that as well.
