Morse had filed a timely appeal and held permanent status as a Career Service employee in the position from which he was demoted. Morse was demoted by letter dated July 21, 1976, because of continued conditional performance evaluations. The issue presented is whether the agency had good cause to demote Morse.
For Petitioner: Melvin R. Horne, Esquire
For Respondent: J. Reynolds Sampson, Esquire
Robert Morse was a permanent Career Service employee, employed by the Department of Transportation as Records Manager. His performance evaluations indicated that he had received satisfactory or above satisfactory ratings from the time of his employment until December 1975, during which period he had not received any oral or written reprimands.
As Records Manager, Morse's duties and responsibilities were as follows:
To supervise the central files function for the Department of Transportation which maintains the depository of current Department
of Transportation files which are not kept in the using office.
To supervise the storage of engineering records of all types.
To supervise the storage and disposal of bulk keypunch cards.
To supervise the central file library.
To supervise the microfilming of engineering plans and drawings.
To serve as Records Liaison Officer between the Department of Transportation and the Secretary of State's Office and coordinate the inventorying, scheduling and planned retention/destruction of DOT records.
In early 1974 Don Page was appointed the Director of Administrative Services for the Department of Transportation (DOT). Upon assuming this position he determined that DOT had not converted the Records Management System developed by the Secretary of state's Office. Page concluded that DOT should convert to the Records Management System developed by the Secretary of State's Office, and established this as one of several objectives of the Records Management function of DOT. As one of several objectives established for the Records Management function, conversion to the Secretary of state's Records Management System did not have particular management emphasis. However, after DOT had to move personnel from private office space into the Burns Building and experienced a critical space problem in 1975, management emphasis was placed on retiring and destroying outdated records. The retirement of theses records was seen as a major means of obtaining additional office space. The other organization objectives of Records Management were eventually accomplished, although several ran over into fiscal year. 1975. However, until 1975 little, if any, work took place on conversion to the Secretary of State's Records Management System.
In order to retire and destroy records, it is necessary to prepare retention and destruction schedules for every records. These schedules must include a description of th record, its use and its useful life. The process for development of these schedules within DOT called for the office holding the record to prepare the initial schedule and transmit them to the Records Manager, Morse. Morse assumed responsibility of compiling, indexing and publishing these schedules in his capacity as Records Management Liaison Officer (RMLO) between DOT and the Secretary of State Office. In addition to his duties as RMLO, Morse remained responsible for supervising the various functions enumerated above.
The evidence clearly indicates that as of the date of Morse's demotion, the retention and destruction schedules for DOT had not been completed and submitted to the Secretary of State's Office. The employee's failure to complete this objective is reflected in his Employer Evaluation dated September 24, 1974 by the comments included under quality of work and acceptance of responsibility. See referenced Employer Evaluation, Exhibit 5. The fact that the retention and destruction schedules had not been completed and that work continued on them is reflected in the employee's Employer Evaluation dated September 3, 1975 as indicated by the comments under quality of work, knowledge of job, and acceptance of responsibility. See referenced Employer Evaluation, Exhibit 5. Morse's continued failure to accomplish the objective of completing the retention and destruction schedule is reflected in his first conditional rating dated January 20, 1976. The comments in this conditional rating under quality of work, quantity of work, knowledge of job, acceptance of
responsibility and attitude show that this conditional rating is primarily based upon Morse's failure to complete the retention and destruction schedules. See referenced Employer Evaluation, Exhibit 5. In his next mandatory evaluation dated March 16, 1976, the comments under quality of work, quantity of work, knowledge of job, acceptance of responsibility, and attitude also indicate that his conditional ratings is based upon his failure to complete important assignments. His supervisor's comments indicated that the assignments not completed were the preparation of a detail plan to expand the Records Management Program into the DOT district offices, and to identify in detail those tasks which should be accomplished before the Records Management survey was considered satisfactorily completed. See referenced Employer Evaluation, Exhibit 5. The conditional Employer Evaluation dated May 21, 1976 indicates some improvement on the part of the employed in completing his assignments in a timely fashion; however, the supervisor's comments indicate that Morse ha not yet completed developing the retention and destruction schedules for DOT records, an objective originally established in 1974. See referenced Employer Evaluation, Exhibit 5. The comments under quality of work, quantity of work, knowledge of job, and acceptance of responsibility on the Employer Evaluation dated July 20, 1976 indicate that Morse, while making some improvement, had failed to meet the objectives of completing the records retention and destruction schedules and publishing a records retention manual. Based upon this and the other referenced conditional ratings, Morse was demoted effective July 22, 1976.
The evidence presented at the hearing indicates clearly that the objective of converting to the Secretary of State's Record Management System was established in 1974. The record further indicates that no work was accomplished in this regard until spring of 1975. Morse personally undertook to prepare the retention and destruction schedules, and the record indicates that 81 schedules were submitted by Morse to the Secretary of State's Office in 1975. His monthly report on the activities of his office indicate that only 683 cartons of records were retired in the year 1975, of which 527 were retired in December 1975.
These monthly reports indicated that no records were retired during the critical summer months of 1975. Neither the records retention manual was prepared, nor was the report on which tasks were to be accomplished prior to completion of the records management survey.
Morse introduced evidence that during the summer months of 1975 his normal complement of 10 employees was reduced to 8 employees through the loss of his central file room supervisor and senior file clerk. In addition, Morse was responsible for planning and supervising the relocation and movement of the central files repository within DOT which necessitated the transfer of some 2,100 cartons of documents to temporary storage in the Secretary of State's record repository. However, considering that Morse was solely responsible for the consolidation, indexing and publishing of the schedules prior to their submission to the Secretary of state's Office, there is no indication that these additional duties made accomplishment of the objective of preparing the schedules impossible, or that Morse advised his superiors of the necessity of additional personnel in order to assist him in accomplishing the various tasks assigned his unit. Although evidence was presented by both sides regarding the performance of the acting Records Manager subsequent to Morse's demotion, this evidence is irrelevant and immaterial to consideration of whether Morse's performance was satisfactory.
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
Section 110.061, Florida Statutes, places the burdened upon the employing agency to show good cause for the demotion of an employee. The record
in this case indicates that the task of reviewing, indexing, and publishing the retention and destruction schedules as a part of the organizational objective of converting to the Secretary of State's Records Management System was not accomplished by Morse. This task, assigned by Morse's superior, is presumed reasonable and the burden falls to Morse to show that the task assigned was unreasonable and beyond the capacity of any employee to accomplish. The evidence presented by Morse at the hearing fails to show that the task assigned was unreasonable. Although a memorandum of Ronald Baggett, Deputy Director of Administration to Don Page, Director of Administrative Services, was introduced which indicated that Baggett was displeased over the continued delays in the retirement and destruction of documents, this memorandum does not express any prejudicial attitude towards Morse. This memorandum must be viewed as Baggett's criticism of Page's administration and supervision of Morse and the Records Management function. In the absence of showing his assigned tasks to be unreasonable or some prejudice against him on the part of his superiors, the presumption of reasonableness must stand and the facts clearly indicated that the tasks was not accomplished. Therefore, the conditional Employer Evaluations based upon Morse's inability to perform his assigned tasks and his subsequent demotion based on his conditional evaluations are found to be for good cause.
RECOMMENDATION
Based upon the foregoing Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, the Hearing Officer recommends that the Career Service Commission sustain the action of the agency in demoting Robert Morse.
DONE AND ORDERED in Tallahassee, Leon County, Florida, this 23rd day of August 1977.
STEPHEN F. DEAN
Hearing Officer
Division of Administrative Hearings Room 530, Carlton Building Tallahassee, Florida 32304
(904) 488-9675
Filed with the Clerk of the Division of Administrative Hearings this 23rd day of August 1977.
COPIES FURNISHED:
