To Obey or Not to Obey!

5.6 To Obey or Not to Obey!

Controversies: 3.19, 5.17 Key Words: village, insubordination, chain of command, equity, lying Case Complexity → Moderate CD: 3.8 Ethics Test CD: 4.16 Cities-Counties Ethics Issues

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Imagine you are an inspector in the Village Engineering Department and have the responsibility to inspect the sidewalks of residents whose streets are being resur- faced. The village policy is clear—residents who live on streets that are partially resurfaced must pay up to $1,000 per home for their sidewalks to be replaced. But, residents on streets that are fully resurfaced are not required to pay. Your job is to determine how much a resident who lives on a partially resurfaced street must pay to replace the sidewalk. Sounds straightforward enough, doesn’t it? Not so. Why? Because the technical criteria for determining the difference between a full resurface and a partial resurface are murky. Moreover, as the inspector, you have suffered for many years trying to explain the system to residents who are impacted.

And, it is your strong belief that the required fee is too great of a burden, par- ticularly as it is not applied in all cases and a large percentage of the residents are retired. After years of expressing your concerns to the director of the engineering department and having them ignored, you decide to take the matter directly to the mayor.

Th e engineering director does not find your conversation with the mayor amus- ing. Indeed, he becomes quite angry with you for going to the mayor and having

his policy decision questioned. He instructs you to proceed with collecting money from residents and lobbies the mayor to support the current policy. You continue collecting checks and contracts from residents but decide not to cash them or pro- cess the contracts because you feel the mayor will rule in your favor. And, you are right. The mayor concludes the system is unfair and resident contributions are eliminated for all sidewalk replacement projects.

Upon hearing the mayor’s decision, you return the unprocessed checks and destroy the contracts. The director, not having budgeted for the change, instructs you to continue with the old policy for the upcoming construction season and to initiate the new policy the following year. Concerned about losing your job, you lie and say that you had not collected any money. You feel it would be impossible to collect the money for the upcoming project year as the change in policy had already been announced in the local press.

In the meantime, the director investigates and finds that the money has indeed been collected and subsequently returned. In his opinion, this was contrary to a direct order. You admit lying but claim that you had merely followed the wishes of the elected officials. The director gives you a pink slip, thus terminating your employment with the village. You decide to appeal the decision to the assistant administrator.

Now imagine you are the assistant administrator. What should you do?

Discussion Questions

1. Was the director right to fire the employee for her behavior?

2. Was the director acting out of his anger at having his decision overturned?

3. Was the employee acting in the best interest of the community?

150 ◾ Ethics Moments in Government: Cases and Controversies

4. Is it sometimes ethical to disobey an order when you feel it is the right decision?

5. Should the employee be disciplined?

Case Assessment

Michael Bonfield, City Manager, St. Pete Beach, Florida:

At first, this case appears to be pretty straightforward: (1) the employee does not believe a written policy is fair; (2) he goes outside the chain of command by approaching the mayor with his concerns about the policy; (3) he later does not follow a direct order from his supervisor to follow the policy; and (4) he is terminated.

In assessing this case, my initial concern would be the intent of the employee in the actions he took. The records relating to sidewalk assessments need to be reviewed to determine if, in fact, the policy is “murky” and resulted in disparate treatment of the residents. Assuming that is the case, the employee’s initial concerns do not appear to be from any self-interest, rather an attempt to fix something wrong with the system. His intent appears to be to look out for the best interest of the residents and potentially save the village from embarrassment should the policy and its implementation become an issue in the future.

Once the employee’s intent was determined to be “for the right rea- sons,” my next concern would be the approach he took to bring his concerns to his superiors. An interview with the employee and depart- ment director is needed to confirm if this matter had been brought forward to the director and what, if any, action was taken. If, in fact, the employee had brought the matter to the director’s attention and it was ignored, approaching the mayor may have been an acceptable step. Th is is the type of issue that could easily create bad publicity for the government and needed to be brought to the attention of someone with authority to act.

Although the employee’s actions did not follow the traditional chain of command, all indications are that they kept a potentially bad situation with the sidewalk assessments from getting worse. The biggest problem with the employee’s actions appears to be when his director instructed him to ignore the mayor and follow the policy as in the past. He should have confronted the director and, if necessary, the mayor, rather than collect contracts and checks from residents and fail to process them in the normal manner. His action to later return checks to residents and destroy contracts was clearly outside any acceptable operational practice. To later lie to the director only compounded the problem. Assuming the employee had a good work

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history, I would overturn the termination and institute a short-term suspension without pay as discipline for his actions with very clear counseling on following the appropriate chain of command to have concerns addressed.

I do not agree with the actions taken by the director. First, the fact that this policy has been implemented in this manner in the past and employee concerns were ignored indicates a severe lack of communi- cation and teamwork within the engineering department. Certainly, follow-up and training are needed in this area. Second, the fact that the director instructed the employee to ignore the mayor’s directive is a significant problem. If the director did not agree with the mayor, further discussion is necessary. In any case, the final decision needs to be followed and directing an employee to the contrary is clearly an insubordinate act. Assuming this was the first incident with the direc- tor in this type of matter, a short suspension without pay would be in order and management training is in order to better establish working relationships in the department.