STATE OF FLORIDA

DIVISION OF ADMINISTRATIVE HEARINGS

DONNA S. JOSEY, )

)

Petitioner, )

)

vs. ) CASE NO. 77-445

)

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, )

DIVISION OF UNIVERSITIES, ) UNIVERSITY OF WEST FLORIDA, )

)

Respondent. )

)

RECOMMENDED ORDER

This matter came on for hearing in Pensacola, Florida, before the Division of Administrative Hearings by its duly designated Hearing Officer, Robert T. Benton, II, on June 7, 1977. The proceedings were transcribed and the transcript was furnished to the Hearing Officer on January 4, 1978.

APPEARANCES

For Petitioner: Mr. Bill Tyler

For Respondent: Mr. M. J. Menge, Esquire

Post Office Box 1831 Pensacola, Florida 32598

By letter dated January 10, 1977, H. Earle Howle gave formal notice to petitioner, on behalf of respondent, of her three day suspension from her job in the comptroller's office at the University of West Florida. Mr. Howle's letter cited five reasons for the suspension, all growing out of a personal check allegedly drawn by petitioner against insufficient funds, cashed by the University, and subsequently returned to the University dishonored. The reasons recited in the letter were:

1. Failure to follow written procedures concerning the handling of returned checks.

   
   

2. Failing to redeem a personal returned check within a reasonable time period.

   
   

3. Failing to consult your supervisor concerning redeeming the check.

   
   

4. Failing to set a time schedule for redeeming the check when approached by your intermediate supervisors. An oral directive was required to get the check redeemed.

5. Your improper attitude toward the situation and toward your supervisors.

In accordance with Chapter 110, Florida Statutes (1975), petitioner perfected an appeal from the suspension to the Career Service Commission.

FINDINGS OF FACT

1. During the year 1976, for several years before, and until February or March of 1977, petitioner worked in the comptroller's office of the University of West Florida. From at least as early as December of 1976, until she left the comptroller's office, she worked as an account clerk II in the student receivable section of the office, under the direct supervision of Ms. Wynell Collins Heidema. One of petitioner's responsibilities was the collection of checks returned to the University for insufficient funds.

   
   

2. Dishonored checks, like all other checks that arrived in the mail, went first to a secretary in the comptroller's office who logged in checks of all kinds on a form called a mail transmittal. The mail transmittal, together with the checks, then went to the head cashier who verified the accuracy of the mail transmittal and sorted the checks into different categories. After segregating checks which had been returned for insufficient funds, the head cashier gave them to Brenda Hill, a teller, who recorded the checks on journal vouchers.

   When Ms. Hill finished this task, she gave both the checks and the journal vouchers to petitioner. Putting the journal vouchers to one side and working from the checks, petitioner filled out a "collection effort card" for each check and mailed a form letter to the person who had drawn the check, asking that the check be made good. She noted the date the letter was mailed on the collection effort card. Afterwards, the checks were placed in a notebook. If necessary, petitioner followed up the original letter with additional efforts to secure payment of the returned check.

   
   

3. This procedure was followed with respect to most, but not all, of the dishonored checks returned to the University. If the returned check was drawn by a faculty member, the faculty member was likely to be notified by a telephone call instead of by a letter. In September of 1976, a University vice president wrote a check against insufficient funds. When the vice president's check was returned to the University by the bank on which it was drawn, it was rerouted before petitioner saw it and Mr. Charles E. Clark, the University's comptroller, personally took the check to the vice president.

   
   

4. One day in the fall of 1976, petitioner's brother promised petitioner that, in partial repayment of a loan petitioner had made to him, he would deposit fifty dollars ($50.00) in her checking account on a specified date before December 8, 1976. Petitioner wrote a check in the amount of twenty dollars ($20.00) on December 8, 1976, and cashed it at the University. She did not learn until later that her brother had failed to deposit the money he had promised to deposit. When the University's bank presented the check to petitioner's bank for payment, petitioner's bank dishonored the check and mailed notice of its action to petitioner. As a routine matter, the University's bank presented petitioner's check for payment a second time. Petitioner's bank again refused to pay it because the funds in petitioner's account were still insufficient. On December 21, 1976, the University received in the mail from the bank the twice dishonored check. A day or two before the check arrived, petitioner had told her supervisor, Ms. Heidema, that it would be coming.

5. The secretary who opened the mail on December 21, 1976, recorded petitioner's returned check on the mail transmittal The teller who received the returned checks from the head cashier recorded petitioner's check on a journal voucher, saying aloud to nobody in particular that a check drawn by petitioner had been returned. When petitioner received the returned checks from the teller, she logged them all in. She wrote letters and filled out collection effort cards for each of them, except for her own check. She put all of the checks, including her own, in the notebook she used for filing returned checks. Ms. Heidema, testified that the dishonor of petitioner's check was the first such incident in five years' time and that she did not feel it was necessary to ask petitioner to redeem the check because she knew that petitioner would do it on her own.

   
   

6. On January 3, 1977, Mr. Clark happened to notice petitioner's check among the other returned checks in the notebook. The following day he investigated and discovered that petitioner had not prepared a collection effort card for her own check and that there was no other indication that she had written herself a letter. He then "discussed the check" (R13) with the assistant comptroller, Mr. Norris, and with Mr. Cordell, an employee in the comptroller's office, neither of whom had previously been aware that petitioner's check had been returned. The three of them "agreed that [they] would wait the rest of the week to see if Mrs. Josey would redeem the check on her own. (R13)

   
   

7. About this time, Mr. Clark learned of a letter petitioner had sent to Chancellor York in which she expressed "grave concern about the management of the Controller's Office at the University of West Florida," petitioner's exhibit No. 1, reported the resignation of several long time employees of the comptroller's office, asked that a managerial audit of the office be performed, and asked that her letter be treated as confidential.

   
   

8. On January 7, 1977, petitioner was summoned to Mr. Norris' office where Mr. Cordell was also present and was asked when she intended to redeem her bad check. She answered that she would do it as soon as possible. Mr. Norris directed her to do it before the end of the day. Within a matter of hours, she brought Mr. Norris a one hundred dollar bill. In the course of her discussions with Mr. Norris and Mr. Cordell, petitioner felt her honesty was called into question and was not as polite as she would have been otherwise.

   
   

9. Messrs. Norris and Cordell recommended to Mr. Clark that petitioner be suspended. Mr. Clark was initially reluctant to act on this recommendation for fear it would appear to disinterested observers that he was acting in retaliation for the criticisms petitioner had leveled in her letter to Chancellor York, but he overcame this reluctance.

   
   

   CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

   
   

10. The evidence established that petitioner failed to prepare a collection effort card on herself and failed to write herself a letter, when a check she had cashed at the University was returned for insufficient funds. Perhaps petitioner's supervisors should have given somebody else in the office the job of collecting from her. As long as they entrusted her with making the check good on her own, however, they were not justified in faulting her for failing to keep a written record of her "collection efforts," in the absence of any request that she do so.

11. The evidence established that petitioner's returned check went unredeemed from December 21, 1976, to January 7, 1977. While this is not to be commended, it does not constitute sufficient cause for disciplinary action, where petitioner's supervisors deliberated on the question as late as January 4, 1977, and decided they would wait before even mentioning it to her and where she did redeem the check the same day she was directed to do so.

    
    

12. The evidence established that petitioner promptly advised her immediate supervisor, Ms. Heidema, of all facts pertinent to her returned check.

    
    

13. With respect to events in Mr. Norris' office on January 7, 1977, the evidence failed to establish any impropriety in petitioner's deportment that would justify disciplinary action.

    
    

14. Pursuant to Section 110.061, Florida Statutes (1975) respondent had the burden to establish sufficient cause for suspending petitioner, a career service employee. Respondent failed to meet this burden.

RECOMMENDATION

Upon consideration of the foregoing, it is RECOMMENDED:

That respondent pay petitioner the money she would have earned if she had been permitted to work on January 10, 11 and 12, 1977.

DONE and ENTERED this 20th day of January, 1978, in Tallahassee, Florida.

ROBERT T. BENTON, II

Hearing Officer

Division of Administrative Hearings Room 530, Carlton Building Tallahassee, Florida 32304

(904) 488-9675

COPIES FURNISHED:

Mrs. Donna S. Josey Route 5, Box 121 Thomas Town Estates Pace, Florida 32570

Mr. J. J. Menge, Esquire

Shell, Fleming, Davis and Menge Post Office Box 1831

Pensacola, Florida 32501

Mrs. Dorothy Roberts Appeals Coordinator

Room 530, Carlton Building Tallahassee, Florida 32304

Docket for Case No: 77-000445

Orders for Case No: 77-000445