Wednesday, September 02, 2015

Carmel Attorney's Unexplained Paid Leave Leads To Change In City's Employment Policy

A couple of weeks ago, Carmel City Council members received an e-mail from Mayor Jim Brainard indicating the city's attorney, Doug Haney, had resigned effective August 18, 2015. By the next day Mayor Brainard was singing a different tune. He told members of the media, including Advance Indiana, that he had not accepted Haney's resignation and that he was on paid leave. Mayor Brainard said the leave had nothing to do with Haney's work for the city and privacy laws prohibited him from explaining further. Haney is paid a salary of $121,430 a year.

WRTV Call 6 investigator Kara Kenney inquired further into the circumstances of Haney's paid leave. Kenney found no provision in the city's personnel manual permitting paid leave for employees under such circumstances. Faced with questions, a spokesperson for the mayor, Nancy Heck, told Kenney the city employee manual will be updated to reflect a practice that she says has been utilized in the past. "However, until that policy is in writing and officially added to the employee handbook, it is the decision of the Mayor that civilian employees placed on paid administrative leave must use their accrued paid time off for compensation," Heck said. "Carmel has put several civilian employees on 'paid administrative leave' in the past several years."

Heck did not provide examples of circumstances supporting the granting of paid leave. "Heck said she could not provide specific examples due to privacy reasons, but said the previous cases involved leave that was non-disciplinary in nature, and deemed in the best interest of city operations," Kenney reported. Haney's abrupt resignation, followed by a quick reversal of that decision, came one day after a heated city council meeting where council members debated adding a new human rights ordinance to the city code that protected Carmel residents from discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, as well as other traditionally protected classes of persons. Haney returned to work on Tuesday.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

OH MY GOD!

CARMEL ONLY HAS CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES!

Every last employee of Carmel, from the Mayor to a revolting speed trap cop on Keystone is a civilian. Carmel does not have a single military employee. Those are the choices, civil or military. There isn't a third choice.

How can Indiana people not know the definitions of very basic words?

Anonymous said...

Emperor Brainard sure seems to unilaterally issue decrees in the fashion of Emperor Ballard.

And that Carmel Council seems to be about as much a joke and just as dysfunctional and impotent as Indy's own gaggle of City-County Council members.

Anonymous said...

Anon 9:19,

Webster's defines a civilian as "one not on active duty in the armed services or not on a police or firefighting force."

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/civilian

Pete Boggs said...

To pay for the Charade-ium & other features of Lego-Land, Carmel "needs" charging stations without coal powered rental cars; parking meters...

Eric Morris said...

When Thomas DiLirenzo wrote "The purpose of government is for those who run it to plunder those who do not" I am quite certain he had my fellow parishioner Brainard in mind. At least my kids got to eat some ice cream in a classroom named for him the other day, but I don't think the Church sells indulgences anymore. He still has time to repent and change his ways; I pray for it. Debt financed cronyism is a sin in my book, as is all taxation.

Anonymous said...

10:51:

I am so saddened when I see posts such as yours, as the shallow reasoning employed in your writing tells me that America is truly so lacking in basic intellect that we're fast approaching third-world status and may never recover.

A civilian is one living under the civil law. The term "civilian" may be presumed, as the term is never employed except in the military, as the military may encounter persons from either set of laws.

Surely, you must have heard of "martial law" at some point? Anyone under martial law is not a civilian and will not be a civilian until civil authority is restored to that person.

No cop is under martial law; ergo, they are under the civil law, thus a "civilian."

This country is collapsing.

LamLawIndy said...

In the local government context, "civilian employees" are employees who are not law enforcement officers. Employment rules for LEOs are quite often different due to (a) the unique service & dangers inherent in law enforcement, (b) the clout exercised by LEOs both at the ballot box & among city- or county-councillors, or (c) a combination of (a) & (b).

Anonymous said...

"In the local government context"

There is no "local-government context." One's status is determined by the legal system under which one lives.

There is the civil law.

There is the military law.

That's it.

There is no "police law."

There is no "firefighter law."

Thus no intermediary law between civilian and military. If not military, then civilian. Simple.

I am aware that police like to flatter themselves by thinking they are somehow due a different legal status than their neighbor, but they are not. Police stand in the exact legal footing of everyone they serve. All are under the civil law. The law determines the status. Without a corresponding legal system, one's status doesn't change. As there is no paramilitary law or paramilitary court, despite their commando desires and banana republic costumes, police are ever civilians.

I see you claim to be in the legal profession. Do law schools not engage in enquiry of the Codex, these days? All this would have been made evident in such a class.

Anonymous said...

Anon 12:37, who I presume is the same person as Anon 11:48.

You're an idiot. You shouldn't even be posting with the adults. LamLaw is right. And your silly attempts to "correct" him are sad, like a young child trying to lecture a professional.

Anonymous said...

Ok, anon 919, your "revolting speed trap cop on Keystone is a civilian" made me howl.

Anon 315 PM. Please, be CIVIL!

As for the leave, regardless of what Carmel has written, federal law which allows for FMLA would override and silly cotton-candy land in Hamilton county. I know lots of people who are granted time to get paperwork in after the fact.