Blevins loses grievance hearing related to firings (Updated)

Two Sebastian County Deputy Circuit Clerks fired in November by Sebastian County Circuit Clerk, Ken Blevins, were found to be fired without cause Wednesday afternoon by a three-member grievance committee.

Tyanna Caldwell and Cassie Vega were fired on Nov. 16. While Caldwell and Vega will continue to be paid, it is not certain if and when they will get their former jobs back at this time, said attorney David Dunagin, who represents Caldwell and Vega.

Sebastian County Judge David Hudson who was out of town Wednesday and the human resources department will have to determine the next step in Caldwell and Vega’s case as they are not reinstated at this time.

Blevins did not comment after the hearing.

Presiding in Hudson’s place at the lengthy hearing was Little Rock attorney Mike Rainwater began the meeting by explaining the Arkansas county grievance hearing procedure to grievance committee members, George McGill, John Johnson and Sebastian County Justice of the Peace Leo Faulkner.

Rainwater said the grieving employee must provide evidence she is being treated differently than another similarly situated employee, that she has engaged in “constitutionally protected conduct” that motivated the dismissal, and that she can prove claims of discrimination.

After a 20-minute executive session, the grievance committee agreed that Caldwell and Vega had met the three burdens of proof to being fired without cause, while Blevins had not met any of the three burdens in firing them.

In April. Caldwell was among six Circuit Clerk employees who complained to the county’s human resources department that Blevins created a “hostile work environment.”

Caldwell was part of a group of women who earlier this year alleged that Blevins sexually harassed them. On May 12, a three-member Sebastian County grievance committee ruled that Blevins sexually harassed office employees and created a hostile work environment. But the ruling was hollow in that the grievance committee has no enforcement power against an elected official.

A few months later, an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission report did not find enough evidence to accuse Blevins of harassment violations.

During Wednesday’s grievance committee hearing, Caldwell and Vega said they believed the terminations were in retaliation for their May grievance testimony.

Caldwell, Vega and Austin were the three clerks in the office’s criminal division. Austin is still on staff in the department and is now doing the work of three people, Dunagin said.

Blevins is not allowed to hire employees to replace any fired employees if they appeal their termination unless the grievance committee decides that Blevins followed county policy in firing them.

Caldwell also stated that she was being “stared at” and closely monitored by Blevins while she worked, while Vega stated that the workplace had become difficult because of the constant monitoring.

Neither employee was given a reason for the firings, but according to the grievance hearing procedure, any at-will employment may be terminated by the County or the employee at any time without prior notice and without cause.

Circuit Court Judges Michael Fitzhugh, James Cox and Prosecuting Attorney Dan Shue all praised the work of the criminal circuit court office while Caldwell and Vega had worked there and described it as a “well oiled machine” that began to break down once Caldwell and Vega were removed. They also agreed that Blevins had not inquired about Caldwell’s or Vega’s work performance before the firings.

Judge Fitzhugh also said one man was falsely arrested after his attorney filed an appearance on his behalf, but because it wasn’t entered in the court record, the man was not aware of the filing and was issued an arrest warrant when he failed to show up in court.

Chief Deputy Clerk Kathy Guthrie, who’s worked in the office for 14 years, agreed that the Criminal division has suffered because of the firings and is now three weeks behind in getting all the necessary paperwork filed.

However, Rainwater cautioned committee members not to consider the effect of Caldwell and Vega’s termination in determining if they were lawfully terminated.

In Blevin’s defense, Fayetteville attorney Jeff Mitchell cited an Administrative Office of the Court (AOC) audit that said accuracy in the criminal division was up from 183 mistakes in last year’s audit to 241 mistakes found in this year’s audit while no similar increase in mistakes was found in other Circuit Clerk departments.

Blevins said he tried to correct the deficiencies, but because of tension caused by Caldwell and Vega, it was difficult to give either woman constructive input.

Guthrie said the audit didn’t single out Caldwell or Vega and that the number of errors in the audit could be because the circuit court’s criminal department handles so many more cases than domestic relations, juvenile or civil cases. She also said some failures, mainly failure to close cases, could be the result of cases that were open years earlier as the audit went back to 1988.

Guthrie also showed a calendar showing that one employ had been shown as absent, but that upon examination of the pay records, this employee had actually been paid, after her pay sheet had been approved by Blevins.

Blevins then produced employee evaluations for Caldwell and Vega which did not put either worker in a positive light, but Blevins admitted these evaluations were never given to the women or officially filed with the county’s human resource department.

Blevins also said that Caldwell had refused to sign her time sheet, which is mandatory company policy.

Caldwell said she refused to sign her time sheets until after Blevins had signed off on them because she had not been given credit for overtime she worked previously, which is given as “comp time.” Caldwell said Blevins had removed the comp time before he signed the time sheet and sent it to the payroll office for process.

Blevins said he had removed the overtime because there had not been a supervisor there to verify the time, but since that time he had been able to verify her extra work and her comp time was restored.

On further questioning, Blevins said the women were insubordinate and that he was unable to monitor and print out Caldwell’s emails, which is a prerogative of his position. He also said the audit findings plus the difficulty working with Caldwell and Vega were the reasons for the firings.

Blevins also said he believed he could make the department more efficient and improve the audit by hiring new people to fill these positions. He said he had 23 applicants for the position.

Dunagin countered by saying that one of the applicants had been previously fired by the county and that the other had been fired from her former job for embezzlement.

Dunagin said Caldwell and Vega plan to file a lawsuit against Blevins within the month.