The law says explain, but Polk County didn’t

Novelist Charles Dickens poked his quill pen at government bureaucracy 175 years ago with his accounts about a fictionalized department he called the “Circumlocution Office.” 

 

“Circumlocution” often is used with disdain to describe writing or speaking that is intentionally vague, evasive or overly wordy.

Sadly, the personnel departments in state and local governments in Iowa these days have become Circumlocution Offices of their own when officials describe why a highly paid public employee was fired.

 

The recent termination of a Polk County administrator illustrates the problem.

 

Until a month ago, Tom Alessio Jr. was the deputy director of the Polk County general services division. The county compensated him handsomely, with a base salary of $155,000 per year. It also let him work a side gig as head football coach at Lincoln High School in Des Moines, for which the school paid him another $8,400.

 

On June 5, the county human resources director informed Alessio that he was fired on the spot. The director hand-delivered a letter to him that day in which she wrote, “This termination is the result of a workplace investigation which substantiated multiple allegations of inappropriate behaviors and conduct. All of these behaviors failed to meet the County’s reasonable expectations of conduct and leadership from someone in your position.”

 

The county has refused to elaborate beyond those statements. Taxpayers deservedly want to know what conduct led county officials in Des Moines to terminate such a highly compensated employee and to do so with such dispatch. 

The Legislature anticipated exactly that question.

 

In 2017, prodded by then-Governor Terry Branstad, the Legislature amended the public records law with House File 291 to require government employers to make public specific information about why an employee is terminated, demoted or resigns in lieu of termination.

 

The Legislature did not ask government to explain. It required government to do so.

 

The language in the 2017 law says employers like Polk County shall disclose the “documented reasons and rationale” for the dismissal of people like Tom Alessio. 

 

The Iowa Public Information Board, a state agency that referees disputes involving Iowa’s open records and open meetings laws, issued an advisory opinion in 2018 that detailed how far government officials must go to satisfy the new law.

 

The board stated, “In order to meet the new requirement … government bodies must say which law, rule, or policy, if any, they believe the employee violated and provide at least one sentence about the behavior or incident that triggered the action. The explanation should include details, such as the date(s) of alleged behavior, location, and how it was discovered.”

 

In other words, a generic statement that an investigation substantiated multiple allegations of inappropriate behavior is insufficient under the requirements of the 2017 law and the IPIB’s 2018 guidance.

 

Facts, not generalities, are required. 

 

The amended language Governor Branstad secured grew out of his belief that Iowa taxpayers deserved to know, as part of Iowa’s broad public policy in favor of openness and accountability, why state and local governments demote, fire or force the resignation of certain workers.

 

That is not a trivial matter.

 

The Legislature has made abundantly clear in recent years that lawmakers believe governments officials need to be better stewards of the ample tax resources provided by Iowans. 

 

This is especially important with personnel matters because employment disputes often become expensive for taxpayers. Transparency promotes accountability before these fights turn into prolonged litigation.

 

Polk County appears ripe for some accountability.

 

Alessio’s boss, general services director Scott Ourth, a former state representative, is a defendant in two workplace sexual harassment lawsuits filed by female Polk County employees. Ourth is accused of engaging in unwanted hugging and touching and making inappropriate comments to women working for him. 

 

Although Alessio is gone, Ourth is still on the job.

 

Governor Branstad and the Legislature decided nearly a decade ago that taxpayers deserve more than vague assurances and cryptic details when government fires a public employee. 

 

They deserve documented reasons. That remains the law today. And Polk County does not get to decide whether that law is convenient. It has a duty to obey the law.

 

This isn’t about Tom Alessio. Nor is it about Scott Ourth, who, when he was in the Legislature, voted against the 2017 legislation being discussed here. This isn’t even primarily about Polk County. 

 

Instead, this is about whether governments in Iowa will comply with a transparency law the Legislature intentionally strengthened so taxpayers could expect and would receive meaningful explanations — not vague statements — when public employees are fired.

 

Considering that plain statutory command, it makes you wonder why in the dickens we continue to tolerate circumlocution experts like those in Polk County.