NORTHAMPTON — The state Civil Service Commission has ruled that the Northampton Housing Authority wrongfully fired one its top employees during a controversial agency reorganization last year and ordered that Michael Owens be reinstated with full back pay and benefits.
In a 27-page decision, the commission also took Executive Director Cara Clifford and the authority’s five-member board to task for violating Owens’ employment rights and for failing to meet their responsibilities under the law.
“…What occurred here was more akin to a purge of certain long-term employees, including Mr. Owens, that Ms. Clifford did not want on her team …” Christopher C. Bowman, chairman of the commission, wrote in Thursday’s ruling.
“Believing, erroneously, that Mr. Owens had no due process protections, she (Clifford) moved forward with a re-organization plan that would result in his termination,” the ruling continued. “That is nothing more than a bad faith effort to discharge a faithful employee, which is contrary to the letter and spirit of the statute.”
Owens is the housing authority’s former director of administration and finance and earned $71,000 annually. He and four other longtime employees were let go as part of a reorganization spearheaded by Clifford just one month after she was hired to replace Jonathan Hite, who retired after 23 years in post.
Clifford had presented her plan to the board during an illegal executive session in August 2015. The affected employees were not afforded proper employment hearings at the time and were shocked by news that they were losing their jobs.
Some, like Owens and David Adamson, a former maintenance supervisor, were later placed on paid leave and subsequently let go again after the board voted to reorganize in a legal session, and after the housing authority conducted employment hearings during which Clifford was the hearing officer.
Owens and Adamson, who worked at the housing authority for 32 years, filed wrongful termination appeals with the Civil Service Commission last fall. Adamson’s appeal is still under review. Owens joined the housing authority in 2008.
Reached Friday, Clifford declined to comment on specifics about the ruling, stating she had not yet read the decision. She said the housing authority would appeal within the 30-day deadline, however. “I can’t tell you what I think about it until I read the report,” she said. “We will be appealing.”
Owens was out of the area this week and could not be reached for comment. His Springfield attorney, Maurice Cahillane, who is also handling Adamson’s appeal, said he was pleased with the decision.
“I think the chairman made it clear that he believed Michael and accepted our arguments,” Cahillane said. “He found it credible.”
In the commission’s ruling, Bowman wrote that the statute under which Owens has Civil Service protections requires that housing authorities show “just cause” prior to terminating an employee with five or more years of service, and that employees such as Owens and Adamson should not have been treated as at-will employees.
“Besides being unseemly, these actions, as now acknowledged by the NHA, were carried out in violation of the just cause protections … and the state’s open meeting law,” he wrote. “Specifically, was the action taken here part of an effort made in good faith to achieve economy and effectiveness in the organization; or, was the act a mere pretext for an improper motive for removing Mr. Owens?”
The ruling states the housing authority’s attempt to justify Owens’ job termination based on conclusions that Owens was performing some of the same functions as his subordinate was not true – and that Owens’ “version of events seemed plausible and had a ring of truth to them.”
“Ms. Clifford’s conclusion that Mr. Owens was performing duties that were duplicative of his subordinate is based, at best, on a superficial review during her first days as executive director,” Bowman wrote on behalf of the commission. “These series of events, the inferences I drew from Ms. Clifford’s testimony, and commonsense, paint a clear picture that Ms. Clifford, during her first days as executive director, simply identified Mr. Owens as someone she did not want on her team.”
Bowman wrote that the commission factored in Clifford’s testimony, which was at times “contradictory,” according to the ruling. One example cited by the commission is Clifford acknowledging having a predisposition against certain long-term public employees, “stating that she comes from the private sector, ‘where you work for your money.’”
The board also took issue with the board’s responsibility to “manage, control and govern” the housing authority and that delegating all or some of that responsibility to Clifford does not absolve board members from their fiduciary responsibility.
“At a minimum, that responsibility requires a thoughtful, deliberate and meaningful review of re-organization proposals, particularly those that will result in the termination of long-term employees with civil service-related just cause rights,” the ruling states. “There is scant evidence to show that those fiduciary responsibilities were met here.”
Attempts to reach Jeffrey Jones, who served as board chairman when the panel voted to accept Clifford’s reorganization plan last year, were unsuccessful Friday. Four members of the board are appointed by the mayor and one by the governor.
Cahillane said it remains to be seen how the housing authority will handle reinstating Owens once the appeal period expires and if he opts take his old job again.
“The way the whole thing unfolded could make it complicated,” Cahillane said. “I suppose its impossible to say because we no longer know how the organization is operating internally.”
In addition to getting his job, back pay and benefits reinstated, the commission ordered the housing authority to reimburse Owens hundreds of dollars toward attorneys fees associated with his employment hearings, summoning witnesses and other expenses.
The Northampton Housing Authority oversees more than 600 federally subsidized housing units at the McDonald House on Old South Street, Forsander and Cahill apartments, Tobin Manor, the Walter Salvo House, Hampshire Heights and Florence Heights. It also administers a Section 8 housing voucher program for more than 1,200 area residents and works with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to administer HUD-VASH, or housing vouchers, for homeless veterans.