Fired Beaufort County leader’s grievance hearing is this week. Why it won’t be public
A former top Beaufort County leader’s grievance hearing against County Administrator Ashley Jacobs will be behind closed doors on Thursday, despite his request that it be held in public. And it will be heard by a committee of employees who report to Jacobs, who then has final say on the committee’s decision, according to the county’s employee handbook.
Former Deputy Administrator Chris Inglese, who was fired by Jacobs in June, is accusing his former boss of creating a hostile and abusive work environment and intentionally trying to make several employees “miserable enough” that they would leave.
In the grievance, which was obtained by The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette, Inglese asks for his job back. He’s also urged Beaufort County Council to remove Jacobs as administrator. But he believes the process is stacked against him.
Jacobs, he said, is “the criminal, the prosecutor, the jury and the executioner.”
The timing of the hearing coincides with council’s ongoing performance evaluation of Jacobs. The review started in closed session during the council’s caucus meeting on July 13 and will likely continue at the next council meeting on Aug. 10, Council Chair Joe Passiment said Wednesday.
Asked if the results of the grievance hearing will have any weight on council’s review of Jacobs, Passiment said no. He said the timing of the hearing and council’s review are coincidental.
On Thursday, a committee of five county employees will hear Inglese’s grievance and the county’s rebuttal to his statements. The committee then has 20 days to report its findings and recommendations to Jacobs, who can accept or decline the decision, according to the Beaufort County employee handbook created in 2016.
The committee members are appointed by the County Administrator and serve three-year terms, according to the employee handbook. Jacobs started her job as administrator on April 15, 2019.
County spokesperson Liz Farrell said she could not confirm which employees are members of the committee, who appointed them or when they were appointed.
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County handbook outlines process
According to the handbook: “If the Administrator rejects the recommendation of the committee, the County Administrator makes his own decision without further hearing, and that decision is final.”
In this case, the grievance is about Jacobs, so she is invested in the outcome. The county has not said whether Jacobs will exercise final judgment in the hearing.
A grievance hearing is not a legal trial. The hearing has to follow procedures outlined in the county’s employee handbook, but its main focus is county policy.
Employees can file a grievance if they feel they have been treated unlawfully or in violation of county policies, including discharge, suspension, involuntary transfer and demotion, according to the handbook.
However, Beaufort County employees are at will and “may quit or be terminated at any time and for any reason,” according to the handbook.
The county’s grievance process does not “limit the authority of the county or an Elected or Appointed Official to terminate any employee when the county or respective Elected or Appointed Official considers such action to be necessary for the good of the county.”
The rules in the county’s handbook are adopted from the County and Municipal Employees Grievance Procedure Act outlined in S.C. law.
However, S.C. law states that the “governing body of each county” that decides to create a grievance policy shall appoint a grievance committee. Beaufort County’s governing body is County Council.
The newspapers could not locate a local ordinance or resolution that created the grievance policy described in the employee handbook.
Public won’t be allowed
Typically, grievance hearings are confidential and are held in closed session. Inglese, however, requested that his be public, as allowed by the county’s handbook.
But because the county closed all government buildings on July 17 due to the coronavirus pandemic, the public will not be able to hear, watch or attend Thursday’s hearing.
According to emails obtained by the newspapers, Theresa Williams, chair of the grievance committee, gave Inglese two options:
- Hold the hearing on Thursday “with no one from the public present.”
- Postpone the hearing until Beaufort County buildings are re-opened to the public.
Inglese decided to keep the hearing on Thursday as scheduled, but he maintains that it should be public, with an option for people to call in or request recordings of the hearing.
He says the closed hearing — and the fact that Jacobs may have final say on a complaint against herself — show that the county’s grievance hearing process is unfair and biased toward the administrator.
In an email sent July 1, Inglese questioned Williams about the planning process for the hearing, including Williams’ statement that Inglese should be the one scheduling the date of his hearing, not his attorney.
“I am only trying to exercise my rights but twice now you seem to be making it unfair and biased against me by first scheduling a hearing without considering my schedule and now attempting to require something of me outside of the grievance procedures,” Inglese’s email says. “Am I just wasting all of our time? Do you have a bias in favor of Ms. Jacobs? It is certainly starting to appear that way.”
Williams wrote back: “There is no bias. The grievance committee will hear from both parties and determine our decision upon what is presented. We do have procedures we must follow and one of those is getting the hearing scheduled as quickly as possible. If the grieving party wishes to have a hearing, that person will make themselves available as needed (though we will consider emergencies). While your attorney may assist you as you need, any communication regarding the hearing, witnesses, etc will need to be made by you to me.”
Jacobs will not be at the hearing and, according to her automatic email response, is out of her office on vacation until Aug. 1 without access to email or voicemail.
In an email sent to Inglese on July 21, Williams said Jacobs “will provide a statement that will be read by the grievance chairperson at the hearing.”
When Inglese asked for a copy of the written statement, Williams responded “you will not be provided the statement. I will read it at the hearing.”
‘Hostile and abusive’
On July 12, The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette reported that Inglese filed a blistering 14-page grievance against Jacobs on June 15 — 12 days after he lost his job with the county.
In his complaint, obtained by the newspapers, Inglese paints a picture of broad mismanagement by Jacobs, who declined comment on the grievance.
The 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. On July 27, Whitney Snyder, the county’s public records specialist, told the newspapers she was “hoping to have it to [the newspapers] within the next day or so.”
