Denver city employees should not be victimized for having the courage to report official misconduct by their superiors. Yet there’s nothing to shield them if they expose wrongdoing.
Denver City Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz hopes to remedy that with a bill introduced Monday night that would protect city employees from retaliation.
It’s a good bill containing important protections, and the city council should adopt it when it comes up for a final vote next week.
Everyone, whether they are in public service or not, should be entitled to make complaints without fearing for their jobs if they have witnessed or experienced illegal activities, unethical practices or other official misconduct while on the job. They also should be able to report health and safety problems.
Faatz said she learned that the city had no whistleblower protection ordinance for employees when a city worker who was being retaliated against asked her for help. Faatz declined to discuss details of the case but said she exhausted all remedies short of court action in trying to help the employee, who is no longer with the city. Faatz won’t say why.
That employee was not alone, said Faatz, who has been studying the problem for at least a year. Last year, she met with employee representatives, including labor organizations, and learned that several Denver government employees have faced or are currently facing similar predicaments, she said. Faatz’s bill says that “no supervisor shall impose or threaten to impose any adverse employment action upon an employee on account of the employee’s disclosure of information about any official misconduct to any person.” It sets up a 30-day window for employees who feel they have been retaliated against to file a complaint with the career service board or their appointing authority. If a supervisor is found to have violated the whistleblower protection law, they would be subject to disciplinary action.
Faatz said that since the supervisor is often the person committing the misconduct, her proposal lists other “appropriate reporting authorities” to whom the employee can report, including the mayor and members of his Cabinet, the city council, district attorney, auditor and others. The bill does not cover anonymous complaints.
Assistant City Attorney David Broadwell said that city employees have several avenues for reporting misconduct, but they lack protections against retaliation. Denver’s 2006 outside audit contained a recommendation that the city adopt and enforce a whistleblower policy. Broadwell said it was coincidental since Faatz’s bill already was in the works. Auditors said a whistleblower policy would be “effective in identifying and deterring fraud and is considered a best business practice.”
Throughout history, whistleblowers have played a key role in exposing wrongdoing. (Watergate and the Abscam corruption scandals come to mind). Here, we’re not talking about corruption of the kind that brought down a president, as Watergate did, or members of Congress, as did the Abscam scandal. But the exposure of official misconduct within Denver’s city and county government – from violations of laws or the code of ethics or misuse of funds or abuse of official authority – is more likely if protections are in place.
Faatz calls it good government.
