Whipped Cream Difficulties

Kevin Leverenz, a sergeant with the Austin Police Department, is going to be promoted to lieutenant.

That’s good news, right? Certainly it is for Sgt. Leverenz. Not so much so for Chief Art Acevedo. You see, Chief Acevedo denied Sgt. Leverenz the promotion; however, the chief’s decision was overturned by an arbitrator.

Even better, this is the second time an arbitrator has overturned a promotion decision by Chief Acevedo in the past two months.

Acevedo said the ruling was based on a technicality, not the merits of his decision.

What, pray tell, was that technicality?

According to Miller’s ruling, Acevedo promoted Leverenz to lieutenant in June, the same day that City Council members cut several vacant positions amid budget reductions.

To legally slash those jobs, however, the city had to first promote officers into those vacancies — state civil service law said they were legally entitled to the jobs — then demote them and place their names on a list for reinstatement.

Leverenz’s lawyer Stribling argued that Leverenz could not be legally bypassed for promotion in November once he had already been elevated a rank and was on that reinstatement list.

So it appears the “technicality” was that he had already been promoted, then the chief changed his mind and tried to yank the promotion. And this is such a minor “technicality” that the arbitrator didn’t even wait for a hearing; he issued his decision weeks in advance of the scheduled hearing, based only on the documents filed by both sides. Some “technicality”.

Now, to be fair to the chief, it looks like there are some questions about Leverenz’s record, and it is possible to argue that he shouldn’t have been promoted in the first place. (To be fair to Leverenz, it is also possible that the charges outlined in the Statesman are trumped-up.)

But…

According to Miller’s ruling, city officials also argued that Acevedo was not responsible for knowledge about Leverenz’s performance and discipline history when he promoted him in June.

What? What?! I cannot believe the chief of police seriously made that argument. “Well, I’m not responsible for knowing the record of my officers before I make promotion decisions.”

That’s over the line.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 18th, 2010 at 7:36 am and is filed under Clippings, Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.