New Hires or New Policy? Closed Discussion or Open? The Questions that Surround City Employment Moves
The hires also required a discussion of the background of the city's new finance director, who was dismissed from a similar job due to "unbecoming" conduct.
BREVARD — Brevard’s hiring of a new finance director addressed one concern of city critics — the longtime consolidation of that role with Jim Fatland’s duties as city manager.
But in doing so, it raised another issue:
Did the splitting of these positions and the moving of former Police Chief Phil Harris to a new job, public safety director, amount to a policy decision that state law says should be discussed in public?
The employment moves come as transparency in city government has emerged as a campaign issue — raised by mayoral candidate Dee Dee Perkins and City Council candidate Aaron Baker.
Complicating matters is the work history of the new finance director, Dean Luebbe, who, though highly qualified, was dismissed last year from a similar position in Black Mountain for several violations of town policy, including “unbecoming” conduct.
Fatland, who has the power under city law to hire and fire employees, sent an email to Council members last week describing the personnel moves:
Along with Luebbe’s hiring as finance director and Harris’ new role, Harris’ former position was being filled by Deputy Police Chief Tom Jordan, according to the email, shared with NewsBeat by Council member Geraldine Dinkins.
She responded with an email that called the changes a “reorganization,” and requested that they be brought before Council either in public or in a closed executive session.
If such issues are a reorganization, law requires that they be discussed publicly, said Brooks Fuller, director of the North Carolina Open Government Coalition and an Assistant Professor of Journalism at Elon University.
Information about individual employees’ work history is broadly protected by state law, he wrote in an email. Discussions of personnel policy are not.
State statute ‘’speaks to this directly,” he wrote, citing language in North Carolina’s open meetings law: “General personnel policy issues may not be considered in a closed session.”
“That is correct,” said City Attorney Mack McKeller, who called for Monday’s executive session. But it would apply only if a new position had been created, he said.
“I think that is the track that you have to pursue, whether that is actually the truth or not, whether there was a whole new position created,” he said. “You can certainly ask the city manager whether a new position under the budget was created, because that would be policy.”
Fatland, approached before Monday’s Council meeting, agreed to discuss the new hires the following day, but then failed to respond to a telephone message left at his office or a follow-up email.
Human Resources Director Kelley Craig, who said Fatland had asked her to address the matter, acknowledged that the position of public safety director was not previously included in a city organizational chart.
Dinkins said that because Fatland had been the city’s finance director since he was promoted to city manager in 2015, the hiring of a separate finance director should also be considered a new position.
Craig said otherwise, because the moves did not add to the city’s workforce. Luebbe replaced recently retired assistant finance director, Tom Whitlock, whose job is not being filled. Jordan’s old job of deputy chief will likewise remain open, at least until Harris retires next year, she said.
“The position has just been reallocated for a temporary period of time,” Craig said of the deputy chief job.
Neither move will impact the budget, she added, though Luebbe, as a department head, will be paid $83,500 — a salary more than $20,000 higher than Whitlock’s.
The city advertised the job on several websites that serve financial professionals, Craig added, and Luebbe’s qualifications exceeded the job’s requirements.
The posting sought applicants with at least a bachelor’s degree in business or accounting, while Luebbe is a certified public accountant with a master’s degree in accounting from Western Carolina University.
After leaving Black Mountain, where he served as finance director and assistant city manager, he was hired as finance director for China Grove, NC, according to a resume submitted to the city of Brevard.
Ken Deal, China Grove’s town manager, praised Luebbe’s performance there. “He did a fine job for us,” he said.
Black Mountain’s town manager, Josh Harrold, dismissed Luebbe on April 21, 2020 for four violations of city policy, including those covering professional behavior and unspecified “searches,” according to a termination letter provided by the town. The letter also cited his “failure in performance of duties,” and “failure in personal conduct” and categorized his actions as “unbecoming a public officer or employee.”
Harrold said he could not release the details that led to these findings or comment further because of the legal protection covering workers’ information.
Luebbe, interviewed after Monday’s meeting, said his dismissal was “one of the toughest times of my life.”
“I’m convinced I made a minor mistake and paid a very heavy price for it. And that minor mistake was my only regrettable action in my nine years there,” he said. “You’re familiar with the term ‘small-town politics,’ and I think I was somewhat a victim of that.”
Because the facts leading to his dismissal would back up this point, he may discuss them “soon,” he said, though he did not return a call to his office on Tuesday.
He did disclose them to the city, he said, and Craig said she had thoroughly investigated the circumstances of his departure to insure they should not stand in the way of his employment in Brevard.
Dinkins and two other Council members, Maureen Coplelof and Mayor Pro Tem Mac Morrow, said they received and accepted that message during the closed session.
Though Copelof said she could not discuss the details of Luebbe’s departure from Black Mountain, “I can say that Council received assurances from the city manager and human resources director that due diligence was done and this was a sound decision.”
Harris’ new role makes “good management sense,” she added, allowing him to take on needed special projects, such as evaluating safety at parks, while the city retains institutional knowledge that Jordan can tap into as he takes over as chief.
“I don't see it as a restructuring as much as a temporary turnover of the job that is a little longer than most,” she said.
Morrow said that because “there has always been a finance director job,” which was previously filled by Fatland, “it’s not a restructuring.”
In her interview for a campaign profile last week, Perkins said that too much city business is conducted in closed sessions, which are held after nearly every meeting. She also criticized the consolidation of the city manager and finance director jobs.
“When the city manager wants to have a meeting with the finance director there is only one person in the room,” she said. “I think that calls into question transparency and accountability.”
“I always thought that was odd,” Dinkins said of Fatland’s twin roles, “and I’m glad we are remedying it.”
But she said she wishes that she had been told by Fatland about the “problematic circumstances” of Luebbe’s departure from Black Mountain rather than learning it from constituents who had “Googled” his name.
And she thinks the discussion about his and Harris’ new roles should have been discussed publicly, because they amount to the creation of not one but two, new high-level jobs: public safety director and finance director.
The city “has not had a finance director since Jim Fatland was promoted to (City) manager,” she said, “so, yes, that makes it a new position to me.”