The City Council may change the City Charter’s rules on disciplinary hearings just five years after changing the charter to allow for the current procedures.
Disciplinary hearings can be “pretty labor intensive,” said Councilman Jack Benson. “We’re caught up in these hearings that sometimes last all day and into the night.”
An amendment on the Tuesday general election ballot asks voters if they will allow the City Council to create an ordinance allowing other options in employee disciplinary hearings.
City Attorney Mike McMahan agreed there is a lot of work placed on council members for these hearings.
CHARTER AMENDMENTChattanooga has a charter amendment on the general election ballot. The amendment reads:This amendment provides minor changes to Sections 3.79 and 13.49 of the Chattanooga City Charter and authorizes the Chattanooga City Council to establish administrative procedures by ordinance for City employees, including fire and police, to appeal certain disciplinary actions to an independent hearing body or judge instead of an appeal to a committee of the members of City Council as is currently provided in the Charter. This amendment does not alter or amend the rights of any City employees to appeal employment disciplinary actions currently recognized in the Chattanooga City Code or Chattanooga City Charter, but rather changes the process and procedures of employment disciplinary appeals. This amendment will result in little or no additional costs to the taxpayer since legal counsel for the City Council will be unnecessary under this amended procedure.Source: Hamilton County Election Commission
“It’s a very time-intensive situation,” he said.
Currently, only council members can serve on the disciplinary hearing boards. Usually, three council members volunteer and a fourth volunteers as an alternate.
City records show a charter amendment in 2005 helped create the current three-person panel.
If the amendment is approved by voters, McMahan said he would recommend that the Secretary of State’s Administrative Procedural Division be allowed to handle the hearings.
“They come down from Nashville about once a month,” he said.
He said he was told that administrative judges with the state office could take on the additional caseload.
Tom Sto-vall, chief administrative judge and director for the Administrative Procedures Division, said Monday he has only had one conversation with the city attorney’s office and was unaware of potential plans to use his office on a full-time basis.
The only municipality his office currently handles cases for full time is Metro Nashville, he said. His office oversees civil service cases for that government body, he said.
Before his office would take on the Chattanooga cases, there would need to be more discussion, Stovall said. “We’d have to stop and say, ‘How many do you have? What is the volume?'” he said.
Councilman Peter Murphy, chairman of the Legal and Legislative Committee, said it is still somewhat premature to talk about who would handle the cases since voters haven’t approved the change. There are other options besides the state office, he said.
If voters pass the charter amendment, it would at least allow a discussion on how the procedures would change, Murphy said. “Ordinances are far more flexible than the charter,” he said.