Former director agrees to mediation
By Steve Herring
Published in News on January 9, 2015 1:46 PM
Wayne County's former human resources director has agreed to mediation of her grievances with her former employer.
But as of Wednesday, Sue Guy said she does not know if the county feels the same way.
County Manager George Wood, who fired Mrs. Guy on Oct. 9 for failure to do her job, said he could not comment on the matter.
Mrs. Guy has filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission -- and what she said is the first in a "laundry list" of grievances that could include legal action against the county.
Mrs. Guy said she had received and signed EEOC paperwork agreeing to the mediation.
She said she assumed that the county had received the same paperwork, but that she did not know for certain if it had -- or if it has been signed.
"I have agreed to mediation, and if the county does, we will set a date and go talk about it," she said.
According to the EEOC website, mediation is "an informal, confidential process for resolving disputes by using an impartial third-party (the mediator) who meets with the employer and employee. The mediator has no decision-making authority, but rather tries to assist the parties to resolve their dispute.
"Participation in mediation does not constitute an admission of any violation of the laws enforced by EEOC."
Mrs. Guy said that other strategies on her laundry list have been "set in play," but she said she could not comment further.
"I will let the system take care of it," she said.
Mrs. Guy said she has not spoken to anyone from the county about the case.
However, she said she was recently contacted by an attorney for the county who wanted to talk about two other cases -- not involving her employment dispute -- that had been filed against the county from 2011.
Ms. Guy said she told the attorney she no longer worked for the county and that she had left all of her files with the county.
EEOC spokesman Joseph Olivares said the agency could not comment.
The law, he said, prohibits the EEOC from confirming or denying the existence of discrimination charge filings, investigations or administrative resolutions.
Information about specific cases only becomes public if and when the EEOC files a lawsuit, and a lawsuit is typically the last resort, he said.
Mrs. Guy alleges that she has been "targeted, defamed and harassed" since 2012 while other employees who broke laws and policies and who falsified documents had been protected.
She said she and her family have been harassed and threatened as well.
Wood has said he fired Mrs. Guy and payroll supervisor Linda Tipton because of a payroll problem that stretched back at least 14 years and that will cost the county more than $76,600 to correct.
The problem is a flawed system that Wood said not only failed to pay a retirement benefit for some law enforcement officers, but failed as well to detect there was a problem.
The issue was discovered last April by the Finance Department. If payroll had not been moved from Human Resources to the Finance Department, the problem could still be going on, the county manager said.
However, Mrs. Guy, in a letter to Wood, said that even if Mrs. Tipton had missed something in sending the payroll to the bank that Finance Director Pam Holt would have realized that when she gave final approval, "had she either not forgotten to approve the transmission, or possibly, had deliberately not approved the transmission."
Also in the letter, Mrs. Guy said that when she joined the county in 2003, payroll was being handled through the county Finance Department before it was moved to her department.
It remained there until April 2013, when it was returned to the Finance Department.
Mrs. Guy said that during a July 2003 meeting with then finance director Norman Ricks and then county manager Lee Smith, she questioned some of the policies.
She said that Ricks told her that Mrs. Holt, as his assistant, was responsible for internal auditing and was in charge of setting up the payroll system.
She also wrote that when payroll moved under her oversight, her office continued the same policies and processes put in place by Mrs. Holt.
"If I am to be held responsible for clerical errors to the point of termination, then Mrs. Holt should be held to the same fate," Mrs. Guy wrote. "Failing to terminate Mrs. Holt will result in our adding an additional paragraph to our action."
In her letter, Ms. Guy said there is a pattern of other county employees who have committed offenses that either resulted in greater cost, or the threat of greater cost, to the county, but who were not fired.