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Employee relations administrator tells Annapolis committee investigations have been delayed, urges updated personnel rules
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Summary
Claudia Barber, the city's employee relations administrator, told the Standing Rules Committee she has observed stalled investigations, the outsourcing of workplace inquiries to employer-defense law firms, and inconsistent use of performance-improvement plans; she urged restoration of investigative authority and updates to personnel regulations.
Claudia Barber, the City of Annapolis employee relations administrator, told the Standing Rules Committee on March 5 that she has observed systemic shortcomings in how employee complaints and workplace investigations are handled and asked the committee to strengthen oversight and update personnel rules.
Barber, who described her role as investigating complaints, mediating workplace disputes and reviewing personnel actions, said she has seen "a troubling pattern involving employee complaints that include failures to follow the city code in hiring and promotion decisions, hostile work environments, retaliation against employees who raise concerns and threats directed at employees." She said some investigations have been delayed or outsourced to outside law firms whose primary practice is employer defense and that in some cases communications implied decisions had already been made before investigations were concluded.
Barber urged the council to restore full job responsibilities to the employee relations office, to review all existing performance improvement plans (PIPs) for code compliance and to adopt clearer personnel policies and independent oversight to prevent disparate outcomes. She offered to provide the committee with statistics on complaints and demographics for unresolved cases over the past six to 12 months.
Council members pressed staff and the city's assistant attorney on legal boundaries. The assistant city attorney and city manager representatives cautioned that investigating open personnel matters is an executive function and that council members must avoid stepping into individual cases; they said the council can, however, review and act on updates to personnel rules and regulations.
Committee members discussed options including a task force or hiring outside consultants to recommend updates to regulations that were described in the meeting as decades old. Members also raised concerns about civil service board staffing and requested that the administration prioritize filling vacancies and delivering recommendations on personnel-regulation updates once a new HR director is in place.
Barber closed by reiterating her request for restored investigative authority and clearer, city-wide personnel standards to ensure fairness and protect employees from arbitrary treatment.
