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FIRED WORKERS: Fired state employees take matter to court

Posted June 04, 2007 11:00 pm

Bruce Rushton

By BRUCE RUSHTON

STAFF WRITER

Enough is enough.

That's the message behind a lawsuit filed Monday in Sangamon County Circuit Court by a lawyer representing two fired state employees who are trying to get their jobs back.

Terminated in April 2006 for allegedly giving favorable treatment to politically connected job applicants, Dawn DeFraties and Michael J. Casey II should be immediately reinstated with back pay, says their attorney Carl Draper.

DeFraties and Casey at most should have been suspended for two weeks over allegations of improper conduct, an administrative law judge recommended a month ago. But instead of accepting or rejecting the judge's recommendation, the Illinois Civil Service Commission remanded the case back to the judge and asked for more evidence, something neither side had requested.

In the lawsuit, Draper quotes state personnel rules that say the commission must render decisions within 60 days of receiving transcripts from administrative law hearings. In the case of DeFraties and Casey, that hearing ended in late March.

"If the finding and decision is not rendered within 60 days after receipt of the transcript of the proceedings, the employee shall be considered to be reinstated and shall receive full compensation for the period for which he was suspended," the personnel code says.

The 60-day deadline passed on Saturday, Draper said in the suit filed Monday.

DeFraties and Casey were assigned to the Department of Central Management Services when they allegedly gave "A" grades to unqualified applicants, changed grades, graded some applications ahead of others and entered some applications into computer systems early to provide hiring advantages. They were also accused of insubordination for refusing to cooperate with an investigation by the governor's office.

Noting that DeFraties and Casey had cooperated with an investigation into hiring practices by the state inspector general's office, Administrative Law Judge Anthony Dos Santos recommended that most of the charges be thrown out. He found that the two had allowed some applications to be graded ahead of others and hadn't recorded some applications that didn't get "A" grades, but such conduct did not merit dismissal, Dos Santos said. He also found that favoritism at CMS didn't start when DeFraties and Casey started working for the agency, but they should have done more to stop it.

The case has dragged on for more than a year. The hearing before Dos Santos began Jan. 29 and lasted until March 23, when the state rested its case. Believing the state hasn't produced sufficient evidence against his clients, Draper called no witnesses.

Before being transferred to other agencies, DeFraties was a deputy director at the CMS personnel bureau and Case was her assistant.

Neither Draper nor attorneys for the state nor Daniel Stralka, executive director of the Civil Service Commission, could be reached for comment Monday.

Draper last month said his clients had been unemployed since their terminations. He also hinted that he would seek relief through the courts.

"The state rested," Draper said after the commission declined to make a final decision. "It said it put on all of the evidence that it was going to put on. At this point, giving the state a second bite at the apple seems inherently unfair."

Bruce Rushton can be reached at (217) 788-1542 or bruce.rushton@sj-r.com.

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