‘Hostile and abusive’: Former Beaufort Co. leader files grievance against administrator
A former top Beaufort County official has filed a blistering 14-page grievance against County Administrator Ashley Jacobs, accusing her of creating a hostile and abusive work environment and intentionally trying to make several employees “miserable enough” that they would leave.
The complaint, which was obtained by The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette, was filed by former Deputy Administrator Chris Inglese, who is fighting to be reinstated to his position.
In his complaint, Inglese paints a picture of broad mismanagement by Jacobs, who declined comment on the grievance.
In his detailed narrative, which spans October 2019 to June 3, Inglese accuses Jacobs of making employees “so uncomfortable that they would leave so she would not have to fire them”; refusing to meet with him about his grievance; telling council members and “the media” that he resigned when he maintains he was fired; and, among other allegations, saying she hired Inglese because she “needed a Sicilian to do the dirty work.”
The newspapers have reported on the resignations, retirement and demotion of several top county employees in the past six months.
On June 8, the newspapers requested the personnel files of seven employees no longer working for the county, including Inglese. The county has not provided those records and on Friday said that it needed an extension to fulfill the request.
Inglese filed the grievance on June 15 — 12 days after he lost his job with the county.
His complaint is scheduled to be heard before a grievance committee on July 30, Inglese and Beaufort County spokesperson Liz Farrell confirmed.
Typically, grievance hearings are confidential and are held in closed session. Inglese, however, has requested that his be public.
A day after losing his job, Inglese sent an email to all 11 Beaufort County Council members, urging them to remove Jacobs as administrator. He said he wanted his job back.
Asked about the grievance on Friday, Inglese said his goal is “to be reinstated and get back to work.”
“My hope is that [Jacobs will] think twice before doing what she did to me to another employee, and that would avoid someone having to go though what I’m going through,” he said.
What happened?
On June 3, Jacobs fired Inglese, he said. He was asked to sign a “covenant not to sue” that states he resigned. He said he refused.
The county, through spokesperson Farrell, confirmed that Inglese was no longer employed with the county but contended that he resigned.
The termination came eight months after Inglese was promoted from deputy county attorney to deputy county administrator — second in command to Jacobs — in October to oversee the operations of the county.
In his grievance, Inglese says that between October and December 2019 — a period when Inglese says he and Jacobs spoke openly and candidly with each other — Jacobs told him how she dealt with problem employees: “You don’t have to fire them, just make them miserable enough to leave.”
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He said Jacobs shared stories about her previous government jobs in which she would “wait people out and patiently pick them off.”
Before becoming Beaufort County’s first female administrator in April 2019, Jacobs worked more than 20 years in local government as assistant administrator for Aiken County, executive director for the Greater Lake City Community Development Office in Lake City, deputy county administrator for Dorchester County, assistant county administrator for Richland County and senior environmental planner for the Central Midlands Council of Governments in Columbia.
Between January and February, according to Inglese’s grievance, Jacobs told him she was applying for jobs elsewhere. Inglese said Jacobs told him that if council did not remove then-council chairman Stu Rodman, “she would be moving on.”
In March, The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette reported that Jacobs interviewed for the position of city administrator of North Augusta on the same day Beaufort County Council members forced Rodman to step down as chair. Jacobs was named a finalist for the position, but withdrew her application after it became public.
Asked about the job in March, she told the newspapers, “I did have concerns about my work environment, but those concerns appear to have been addressed.”
Throughout March and April, according to Inglese’s complaint, Jacobs “chastised” Inglese several times. She was furious when she learned Inglese had shared with council members Jacobs’ intention to hire Farrell as the county’s new public information officer, according to the grievance. And he said she was angry when he worked, without Jacobs’ consent, on an information flyer about a potential merger of the Daufuskie Island Fire District and Bluffton Township Fire District, the grievance said.
This is when Inglese’s work environment and his relationship with Jacobs “completely changed,” according to the grievance.
“Ms. Jacobs was acting very differently now,” the grievance said. “It was as if she was a totally different person. Prior to March 12, we had open and candid communications. Now she would not engage me in a conversation at all.”
Inglese said he felt “isolated and estranged from my own staff.” Jacobs left him out of communications with council, as well as budget discussions, according to the complaint.
In mid-April, according to Inglese’s grievance, Jacobs complained about former county financial officer Alicia Holland and was “very mad because no ‘budget book’ was prepared by April 1.”
Within a few days, Holland submitted her letter of resignation, according to the complaint.
The newspaper reported that Holland resigned from the county on April 21, just hours after updating the county’s finance committee on the budget process.
Around that time, the grievance says, Jacobs told Inglese that he could no longer speak with reporters from The Island Packet, and spokesperson Farrell created a Media Relations Policy where “only the PIO or the Administrator could talk to the media.”
Throughout April and May, Inglese wrote, Jacobs sent several emails that demonstrate “a hypercritical, curt and abusive environment.”
“Two months of hyper criticism about everything I did,” the complaint said. “I could do nothing right during this time.”
On June 3, according to Inglese’s grievance, he was “randomly summoned” by Jacobs to the county’s human resources office and fired.
Jacobs told him that “things just aren’t working out for you in this position,” the grievance says.
Inglese was asked to hand over his badge, key and phone, and a “severance offer was slid across the table and I was told I have 21 days to think about it,” the grievance says.
“I was not allowed to collect my personal effects form the office ‘due to security reasons.’ A crew showed up at my house the next morning to drop items off. It was humiliating.’”
This story was originally published July 12, 2020 at 7:30 AM.
