Officials remain tight lipped, citing privacy laws
By Michael S. Hoey
Correspondent
A 20-year city utility worker claims she endured six months of harassment from her supervisors before being fired last week.
At a special meeting Nov. 3, the Delavan Common Council terminated the employment of utility billing clerk Patricia Soukup. Soukup claims she was repeatedly harassed since Finance Director Kelly Hayden was hired in December. She said the harassment led to health problems for which she is still under the care of a therapist and, ultimately, her termination.
Soukup said Hayden and City Administrator Denise Pieroni harassed her from December through June. Soukup said she went on leave in June and has exhausted her vacation and sick leave.
Pieroni and Hayden declined to comment. Pieroni cited HIPPA privacy laws. She also said Soukup did not file any formal complaints about harassment.
Soukup said she talked to Personnel Committee Chairman Bruce DeWitt about bringing the matter before the committee. She said he told her she would have to file a complaint with her supervisor to get the matter heard by the committee. Soukup said she did not feel submitting such a request to the person who was harassing her made any sense. DeWitt did not respond to a request for comment.
Soukup said she has worked for the city for 20 years and never had any problems before Hayden was hired in December. Hayden replaced Barb Stebnitz who retired as utility director in May 2013. Her position was reorganized under the new finance director position. Soukup said Hayden made dramatic changes to how things get done with the water utility.
“She turned everything upside down,” Soukup said.
In addition, Soukup said Hayden harassed her about how she was doing her job on a daily basis.
“I had been doing that job for 20 years and now, all of a sudden, I couldn’t do anything right,” Soukup said.
Soukup said she remembers doing something out of routine that was not correct based on the new rules, and Hayden got so upset she told Soukup that she would do it herself so that it would get done right.
Soukup said she was called into weekly meetings to discuss her job performance, a practice she saw no other staff member forced to endure. She called the meetings “brow beatings” designed to get her to quit.
“It got to the point where I couldn’t concentrate or think,” Soukup said. That was when she sought help from a therapist. She said she did not consider quitting because she felt she had a good job with a lot of responsibility. She said the position was the third job she’d ever held, and she didn’t want to lose it.
Soukup said going to her doctor appointments became an issue as well as Hayden frequently denied her permission to leave work to attend them. She said Hayden then gave Soukup a calendar with highlighted dates on which Soukup could have time off for her appointments and forbade her to miss time on Mondays or Fridays. Soukup said that made it very inconvenient to schedule her appointments.
Pieroni denied an open records request to provide any documentation related to Soukup’s termination citing privacy laws that prohibit the city from releasing them.
“The city addressed a sensitive personal issue involving Ms. Soukup that impacted her ability to effectively perform her job duties and remain employed with the city,” Pieroni wrote in the records denial. “The city worked with Ms. Soukup for several months.”
“The city is respectful of Ms. Soukup’s situation and her personal interests in this information, and the city is comfortable with how it has addressed this situation,” Pieroni wrote. “Ms. Soukup was not terminated for disciplinary reasons.”
Soukup provided the Enterprise with a copy of a Sept. 10 letter Pieroni sent to Soukup’s physician asking for medical information. Pieroni stated in the letter the city was asking for the information pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act to see if Soukup suffers from a medical condition that might affect her work and what, if any, accommodations might allow her to perform her job.
Soukup said Pieroni asked for very specific information that was, in her opinion, none of her business. She said her doctor agreed and refused to fill out the questionnaire.
The questionnaire included 16 questions asking if Soukup had a mental or physical impairment, what the impairment was, what the limitations of the impairment were on life activities, what the prognosis is, if the impairment is permanent, how the impairment affects her ability to perform her job, meet deadlines, and make decisions, and if Soukup is able to work professionally and be subordinate to Hayden.
In addition to seeking medical information, Pieroni’s letter explained the city’s concerns about Soukup and said there were “periodic meetings to address or clarify certain procedures globally with the office staff.” The letter noted a separate meeting at which Pieroni and Hayden met with Soukup to discuss concerns about her performance.
According to Pieroni, Soukup submitted an article titled “Respect at work: How to get it back if you’ve lost it” and requested they read it at that meeting. Pieroni wrote that Soukup inadvertently submitted the original rather than a copy and supervisors discovered that Soukup had covered up one of the points in the article referring to what supervisors should do with disrespectful workers.
“This action is reflective of her inability to accept any level of responsibility for her own actions,” Pieroni wrote. “She generally directs blame at others.”
According to Pieroni’s letter, she and Hayden started to hold weekly meetings with Soukup in May at which Soukup would often doodle. Soukup said doodling helps her relax. Pieroni said Soukup made statements that she can’t handle the stress, she was feeling overwhelmed with the changes, and she is so used to a routine that she can’t handle the changes.
The letter also stated restrictions on when Soukup could leave work to attend doctor’s appointments were necessary because she needed to be in the office during crucial work load times to prevent the office from being short-staffed and the need to pay overtime to keep the utility on task. The letter stated many of the days Soukup need time off were billing days, shut-off days, or “other critical dates relating to the primary functions of her position.”
On another occasion, the letter states Soukup didn’t complete a task Hayden asked her to perform, and when Hayden tried to discuss it with her, she held up her hand indicating Hayden should be quiet and said she was leaving. She then called in sick the next workday. The letter stated that Hayden noticed during the conversation that Soukup was working on her checkbook and not city work.
Also according to the letter, Soukup said her mental health was her top priority, not her job, and she called Hayden a bully. Hayden, according to the letter, told Soukup that if she felt up to coming in to work she was expected to be able to do her job.
Soukup said Pieroni’s letter made several additional claims to her physician that were not true or were questionable. The letter said Soukup has been rude to customers, has spoken in a derogatory manner to customers about new city policies, and she spends a great deal of her work day dealing with personal issues.
It also said she immediately became agitated when approached by her supervisor to discuss situations to the point she shakes, she has disappeared throughout the course of her workday without informing anyone, has failed to take ownership of errors, has made paranoid outbursts claiming co-workers “set her up,” and she intentionally doesn’t follow orders.
Soukup said much of that is just not true, like being rude to customers. She said she has made negative comments about policies that she doesn’t agree with and called Hayden a bully because she felt she was being bullied.
Soukup said the only time she spent away from her job was to use the restroom or smoke a cigarette and denies spending a great amount of time on personal issues. Soukup said she is human and is willing to admit mistakes but maintains at least one co-worker switched some paperwork related to her.
Soukup said she never intentionally failed to follow orders. She said it was difficult to keep up with all the changes that were made, and Hayden often changed her mind about things. She said the letter indicated Pieroni and Hayden tried to keep her involved in decisions but decisions seemed to Soukup to be made ahead of time. The letter said Soukup was unable to accept the level of responsibility of her job. Soukup said Hayden stripped much of that responsibility away.
The letter also said supervisors believed Soukup was a danger to herself and others. Soukup called that claim “disturbing.”
Soukup said she was disappointed with Mayor Mel Nieuwenhuis because she tried contacting him several times and he never called her back. Nieuwenhuis did not respond to a request for comment.
Soukup spoke with Alderman Ron Henriott. Henriott, who replaced former Alderman Mary O’Connor in August, said the issues seemed to have occurred before he joined the council. He said Soukup was on the staff when he served as mayor and he knows her well, but he had no knowledge of any harassment.
Henriott said Soukup talked to him about a month ago but he couldn’t say much to her because the matter had been discussed in closed session. He said the city kept a half-time position open for Soukup for a while, attorneys for the city have been working on the issue for several months, and the situation is finally resolved.
Henriott said the timing of the termination might have been related to Soukup becoming eligible to receive disability benefits from the state. Soukup confirmed she started receiving benefits just before the termination.
Soukup said she has not decided what, if anything, to do about her situation.
“I feel they pulled the rug out from under me,” she said.
