Matteson officials gave a politically connected Public Works Department employee second chances until it cost them — and taxpayers — tens of thousands of dollars, records show.
The son of Trustee Paula Farr, who is a building maintenance worker, began receiving performance reprimands shortly after being hired in February 2012, but he retained his job in spite of them, according to village personnel records. He did not return calls seeking comment left on his family’s answering machine and at his home.
Despite being caught numerous times for playing on his cellphone during work hours, disappearing while on duty and exerting minimal effort in the projects he undertook, Farr’s son rose from a probationary employee to a mid-level building maintenance worker, records show.
His job performance earned him written and verbal reprimands, placement on a performance improvement plan and multiple suspensions, but over the course of 3 1/2 years, his salary shot up 27 percent, or more than $10,000, according to village personnel documents.
When the village tried to fire him in 2015, he contested the termination with his union’s backing and won.
Invoices show the village spent $36,876 on legal fees defending its failed attempt to terminate Farr’s son, who as of January was back to work in Matteson’s Public Works Department.
Had the village terminated him while he was still a probationary employee — something it threatened multiple times but did not follow through with — he would not have been able to grieve his firing, and Matteson would not have expended nearly $37,000 to try, and ultimately fail, to get rid of him.
Writing was on the wall
Most of Farr’s son’s infractions occurred after he completed his extended probationary period — which lasted nearly two years, instead of the typical 12 months, records show. But there was cause for concern before then, personnel records show.
He received his first formal disciplinary write-up about eight months into the job for repeatedly texting while driving village vehicles, personnel records show.
Farr’s son’s defense, according to village documents: “I was not texting, I was tweeting.”
On the one-year anniversary of his hire, Farr’s son received notice that he had not satisfactorily completed his probationary period, owing to “performance reasons” coupled with his failure to obtain a Class A commercial driver’s license within six months of his hire date, as was required for the job.
Rather than firing him, the village offered to extend his probationary period by 90 days.
If he didn’t obtain his CDL within 90 days, he would be terminated, village documents state.
But 106 days later, Farr’s son still hadn’t obtained his CDL, and he still had a job.
The village offered him another extension — 45 days this time, documents show.
Again, Farr’s son was told he’d lose his job if he didn’t comply.
“Your failure to meet this (CDL) requirement within the 45 day extension will result in termination of you (sic) employment,” states a personnel action report signed by the director of public works, the director of human relations and the village administrator.
Forty-five days came and went, and Farr’s son still hadn’t acquired a CDL, but he kept his job.
When he finally obtained the license — 159 days after his 45-day extension and more than 14 months after he was supposed to have acquired it — Farr’s son received a $4,324 raise, which bumped his salary to $46,939, according to personnel documents.
With his CDL in tow and his probationary period complete, Farr’s son could no longer be suspended, laid off or terminated without cause, according to the terms of his union’s collective bargaining agreement with the village. He had the power to contest any suspension, layoff or termination.
Less than a year after he completed his probationary period, Matteson put Farr’s son on a performance improvement plan due to sustained subpar work and gave him seven days to shape up, records show.
He did not, records show.
“At the conclusion of the seven-day period, there wasn’t noticeable improvement on your part,” reads a letter from Farr’s son’s boss recommending his suspension for two days.
“These actions show a total lack of willingness to care for your job assignment as well as the village’s values,” states the supervisor’s letter, which details continued disappearances from work and substandard performance.
Farr did not contest that suspension, but he did fight the next one, which the village handed down a few months later for similar infractions.
As a result of filing that grievance, Farr’s second suspension was reduced from five days to four, and he was credited with one day’s pay on June 30, 2015, records show.
But the problems continued, and Matteson terminated Farr’s son four weeks later, citing more than a month’s worth of performance issues that included “texting in the mechanical room,” “returning to the work site late from lunch break,” “relaxing in chair in mechanical room,” and being “once again discovered in the mechanical room going through some papers” while on the clock.
“Your failure to perform required duties in a satisfactory manner, despite repeated warnings, carelessness, indifference toward your duties, and failure to make satisfactory progress to correct or improve performance deficiencies is in direct violation of Village of Matteson Personnel Policies and Practices,” reads a July 27, 2015, note in Farr’s son’s personnel file. “Accordingly, you are therefore terminated effective immediately.”
Farr’s son’s final on-the-job transgressions involved taking three days to complete a one-day task and doing that task shoddily; texting instead of working; leaving washroom facilities in “an unacceptable condition”; and regularly leaving tools and equipment out at the end of his shift, often for days, according to his termination notice.
He filed a grievance a short time later, and the issue went to arbitration, where both sides presented their cases. On Dec. 13, 2016, Gil Vernon, the arbitrator, rendered a decision.
While Vernon was critical of Farr’s son, calling his behavior “childish and immature,” and compared his excuses to “something you would hear from an eighth-grader, not an adult,” he nonetheless overturned Farr’s son’s termination, writing that Matteson could have given the worker one last chance to correct his deficiencies.
“The Arbitrator could not escape the feeling that if given a last chance that Grievant would prove himself acceptable,” wrote Vernon, suggesting the village could have given Farr’s son a “significant suspension and a sternly written final warning” rather than firing him when it did.
Vernon also laid blame on Farr’s son’s supervisor, whom he wrote “appears to have ‘passed the buck’ ” on holding him accountable because “he was a good friend of Grievant’s father (also a village employee) and Grievant’s mother (an elected Village official).”
“Unfortunately, the Village appears to have let Grievant’s supervisor off the hook and that made Grievant more difficult to manage,” Vernon wrote. “The Village has to ‘own’ this failure to some extent.”
Questions of nepotism
Matteson officials did not return multiple requests for comment on the village’s decision to extend Farr’s son’s probationary period multiple times and not carry through with multiple promises of termination when it could still do so without him having recourse.
Village residents and fellow employees have speculated that Farr’s son had a longer leash than other employees because of his mother, said Andre Satchell, a trustee who supports a crackdown on familial hiring in the village. Paula Farr did not return a request for comment on her son’s situation.
“I just heard the rumors,” Satchell said. “That employees felt he was given opportunities, more opportunities than an average employee.
“Any time you hire family members, other employees are automatically going to feel that. (Does) it have merit? I can’t say.”
Regardless, the situation with Farr’s son provides an additional reason to consider passing an anti-nepotism ordinance, he said.
“I’m not saying that I’ve seen anything specifically,” said Satchell, referring to relatives of trustees receiving preferential treatment. “I’m looking at just in terms of appearances’ sake.”
Government reform advocate Sarah Brune said it’s best for elected officials to abstain from hiring family members so as to avoid even the appearance of favoritism.
“I think for elected officials it’s best in general to just stay away from hiring your family members or making any hires that could be seen as political,” said Brune, the executive director of Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, a government watchdog group. “We never want to see an elected official use their position that was given to them for their own personal gain or the gain of people in their inner circle.”
Matteson does not have a blanket prohibition on elected officials hiring their relatives, but the question of adopting one received attention during the recent election season.
Sheila Chalmers-Currin, a Matteson trustee and the village president-elect, said during her campaign that, if elected, she would put an end to nepotistic hiring practices in the village.
Satchell, who supports Chalmers-Currin’s efforts, said he’s long heard complaints from residents about the village’s practice of hiring relatives for government positions.
“That’s an issue that the residents have always articulated, at least to me, that they didn’t like,” he said. “And so that’s something I’ve stated that I would like to see addressed.”
In addition to Paula Farr, whose husband and son are Public Works Department employees, three of Matteson’s other elected officials also have immediate family members employed by the village.
Village President Andre Ashmore’s ex-wife, according to Satchell, is the director of community affairs, and his son is a code enforcement inspector; Trustee Bridget Dancy’s husband is a maintenance worker, and her son is a part-time building attendant with the recreation department; and Trustee Sam Brown’s son is an athletics manager in the recreation department, according to village payroll records.
Ashmore and Dancy did not return requests for comment.
Brown said he understands why some people might question the practice and believes each case should be considered individually.
He said he doesn’t take issue with the village hiring trustees’ family members as long as they don’t hold positions of significant authority.
“In the case of my son, in particular, he’s got a low-level management job, and he doesn’t make a lot of money,” said Brown, whose son Alexander makes $38,069, according to payroll records.
Brown acknowledged that he referred his son for the recreation department job but said he wouldn’t have done so if his son hadn’t been qualified.
“I wouldn’t get them a job that would make them village manager,” he said. “But stuff like this, like the job he has, I would help with that. I’m a parent like anybody else. And most parents will do what they can to help.”
While helping family members secure government jobs is fair game for Brown, he said he doesn’t support preferential treatment for them once they’re hired.
“Should (my son) falter … that’s on him,” Brown said. “But I will not intervene if he’s not living up to standards, at all. I won’t do that.”
He said he wasn’t aware of the specific details of Farr’s son’s case but said the village may have erred by not terminating him before the conclusion of his probationary period.
“Maybe he should have been fired early on, and then he would not have had recourse,” Brown said.
Twitter @ZakKoeske
