The Illinois Civil Service Commission will
meet in Chicago today, Dec. 15, to hear the final appeal of 11
former state natural-resources employees who claim they were
unfairly laid off earlier this year. If successful, says Gary Leach, executive
director of the Illinois Federation of Public Employees, a labor
organization working on their behalf, the workers could get their
jobs back and receive back pay. However, he is preparing for a
worst-case scenario. “We assume [the commission] will say
‘Sorry, Charlie. Go find yourselves another job,’
” Leach says. Beginning in October, the Illinois Department
of Natural Resources cut a total of 124 jobs. Gov. Rod Blagojevich
ordered the layoffs to meet the agency’s $15.7 million
reduction plan, proposed by the Legislature in an effort to slash
the state’s $2 billion budget deficit. Among those laid-off, effective on Jan. 14,
were public service administrators Ray Coleman and Tim Kielar and
site superintendents Nick Ignelzi, Robert Myers, Charles
Montgomery, Andy West, and Greg Behm. Four others — David
Pinski, Loren Swanson Molie Oliver Jeffrey Wepprecht — have
since been reinstated, Leach says. Critics of the move feared that the workforce
reduction might lead to the deterioration of state parks and put
visitors in harm’s way, which could expose the state to
lawsuits. In a letter to civil-service commission
executive director Daniel Stralka, Mary Lee Leahy, the Springfield
attorney who will argue the workers’ case, questioned the
reasons given for the layoffs. Due to the fiscal shortfall, assistant attorney general William Jarvis, says in the
state’s rebuttal to Leahy’s letter, the agency determined
which positions could go without disrupting with essential operations. Site superintendents, public service
administrator, specifically, he notes, “were deemed less
vital to operations because other employees in the organizational
unit could be assigned those additional duties without
significantly eroding the Department’s overall
mission.”
However, that the duties of her clients had
been reassigned, Leahy asserts, proves that the cutbacks were not
based on operational need. She also contends that there were other
positions that could have been offered to the affected employees,
but that DNR refuses to acknowledge that the vacancies exist. Meanwhile, several of the ex-DNR employees
have already done what Leach says the commission will likely tell
them to do: They’ve moved on and found other jobs. Although
the accusations aren’t part of the civil service commission
case, they make no qualms about criticizing the governor for using
their former agency as dumping ground for cronies of the
administration. St. Clair County gadfly Ray Coleman, now a
12th District Democratic Central Committee candidate, has bucked his own party,
endorsing Illinois Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka, a Republican, in the
governor’s race. Coleman has also thrown his support behind Alexi
Giannoulias, who’s challenging the state party’s pick, Knox
County State’s Attorney Paul Mangieri, for state treasurer in the
Democratic primary. Coleman, who is black, is suing DNR in a
separate federal suit that accuses the agency, its director Joel
Brunsvold, and downstate Democratic powerbroker Sam Flood of using
his influence to land Flood’s son, Scott Flood, a plum job as
Coleman’s superior at Horseshoe Lake Fish and Wildlife Area
near Granite City. In October, the senior Flood received a
$21,000 pay raise to become the agency’s assistant director.
Flood will oversee the completion of Sparta’s $29 million
World Shooting Complex, a project that one of the laid-off DNR
workers, Andy West, calls extravagant. “I don’t want to beat up on this
administration because this tradition of political patronage is a
tradition in Illinois,” West says. “Both parties have
used Natural Resources as a playground to put their buddies
in.”
Nevertheless, he does charge that the
Blagojevich administration consistently threatens the jobs of its
critics. West, the former site superintendent at Union
County’s Trail of Tears State Forest, holds a doctorate in
zoology and believes one reason he lost his job was because he
tried to encourage more professionalism among his peers. Former Clinton Lake site superintendent
Tim Kielar also believes that politics played a role in his ouster.
Kielar thinks he drew the ire of local Democrats by voting in the Republican primary and complaining about poor
work habits exhibited by summer employees hired by a powerful DeWitt
County politico. DNR spokesman Chris McCloud insists that
Coleman, Kielar, West, and the others were laid off for “lack
of funds.”
“The DNR and the governor stand behind
that decision,” McCloud says. He declined to comment on the
upcoming civil service commission hearing. Keilar, who has accepted a retirement
package, is considering a separate lawsuit. Coleman and West both
are on the state’s job recall list, and under state law must
be offered their jobs back should vacancies open up. West won’t say whether he would take
his old job but expresses his frustration with the DNR cuts and
Blagojevich. “I cared a lot about the department;
it’s clear that this governor doesn’t care,” West
says. “I’m angry at this,” West says.
“I’m beyond bitter and annoyed.”
This article appears in Dec 15-21, 2005.
