Behn’s solution | Readers’ responses | Previous dilemmas

”Not again!” That’s your first reaction (or at least your first printable reaction). Clemma Rogers has filed another grievance, and, if history provides any clue, she’ll win this one, too. Clemma, it would seem, makes her living filing grievances, and you, as the commissioner for West Dakota’s Department of Vocational Rehabilitation, are the one who ultimately has to deal with them.

This time, however, you knew it was coming. After all, this grievance business started three years ago. Then, as now, Clemma was working in the department’s headquarters in Zenith City when she got into an argument with a colleague, Michelle Price, and hit her on the head with the nearest thing available: a three-hole punch. Clemma claimed she had used the rubberized side, but the report from the emergency room suggested otherwise. (Naturally, Michelle filed for workers’ comp, and it was nine months before she returned to work.)

This was not the first time that Clemma had hit anyone. Indeed, she had previously been involved in several incidents. At first, these were simply shouting matches. Because you couldn’t unequivocally determine who was at fault — Clemma always had one person who would (sort of) corroborate her story — you didn’t document these episodes. That would have required you to put something official in the files of both Clemma and one of your best employees.

But when Clemma bopped the aging (and venerated) Willie Balgam, no one supported her. No one corroborated her story. You wrote the incident up and put a copy in Clemma’s file. This, however, did not satisfy your staff. And when Balgam retired six months later, he left with a blast at the department and you.

So when Clemma Rogers hit Michelle Price, you were ready. You immediately suspended Clemma. She immediately filed a grievance. And won. In effect, the grievance officer said that your punishment didn’t fit her crime.

But her colleagues in headquarters didn’t want her around, and you didn’t either. So you assigned her to head the Nadir Valley office. This seemed like a perfectly legal assignment; after all, the head of the office had retired several months ago, and it still needed a new director. Moreover, Clemma’s formal qualifications — educational credentials, experience, years-in-position — precisely fit the job description.

Still, everyone in West Dakota knew that Nadir Valley was the state’s equivalent of Siberia. Everyone in Voc Rehab knew that you wanted her to quit. (For that matter, everyone in Voc Rehab wanted her to quit.)

Predictably, Clemma filed another grievance. And the hearing officer wasn’t fooled. Calling the assignment to Nadir Valley a “transparent retaliation,” he ruled against you. Under the policy of progressive discipline, you first had to do a number of things — provide counseling, put a reprimand in her file, etc. — before you could ship her to Siberia.

You weren’t surprised. Anyway, it was a nice try. And while the grievance process was going on, Clemma hadn’t hit anyone.

Still, this meant that Clemma was back at her old job. Even more significant, it meant that she was back in headquarters dealing with other Voc Rehab employees. It was only a matter of time before something happened.

On January 3, it did. But it wasn’t what you had expected. Clemma didn’t hit anyone. Instead, she chewed out a citizen. She yelled at a teenager and at his mother who had brought him in to see if the department could do anything for his dyslexia. This wasn’t really the department’s responsibility, and Clemma let the mother and child know it — extremely explicitly and extremely loudly.

The woman wasn’t politically connected, so you didn’t hear about the incident from five legislators, two priests and the governor’s finance director. But she did write a letter to the governor, and his office forwarded it to you. Moreover, when you checked out what had happened, the clerk on duty and an intern who happened to be in the office during lunch confirmed the woman’s story.

So you suspended Clemma. She filed another grievance. And although you don’t doubt that the encounter happened more or less as the woman, the clerk and the intern reported, Robbie Frankson, your legal counsel, flatly predicts that you will lose. You simply don’t have enough evidence. And Clemma knows how to manipulate the grievance process.

Moreover, Robbie tells you, if Clemma wins again, you’ll never be able to discipline her, get rid of her — or even move her office down the hall.

For Bob Behn’s approach to this month’s public management dilemma — or to post your own ideas — click here.