A national park superintendent who was highly valued for her performance and skills has been fired by the National Park Service for refusing to accept a job 500 miles away from her home and family.
While Mary A. Miller, superintendent at Sitka National Historical Park in Alaska, initially was successful in appealing her dismissal, a federal appellate court overturned a decision by the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board and Ms. Miller was escorted out of the park by the chief ranger on New Year's Eve.
Park Service officials in Alaska decided in 2010 to shift Superintendent Miller from the historical park to a new position as Alaska Native Affairs Liaison in Anchorage, 500 miles away. When she declined the reassignment, claiming she was not qualified for the role and that it would be a hardship because of her family situation, the Park Service fired her. Ms. Miller then appealed that decision to the Merit Systems Protection Board, which overturned her dismissal.
In gathering testimony on Ms. Miller's appeal, the Merit Board heard from the Park Service how it "had a high regard for the appellant’s performance as the superintendent in Sitka. Indeed, agency witnesses testified that the agency relied upon the appellant’s strengths and accomplishments as a Superintendent as the basis for directing her reassignment to the Liaison position in Anchorage," the board noted.
Furthermore, it added in its ruling in April 2013, "we find that it did not promote the efficiency of the service to direct the appellant to take the position in Anchorage against her will and to remove her from employment altogether when she declined the position. As a result of the agency’s actions, it lost an apparently valued and successful employee, and created two vacancies that the agency had to fill after her removal."
The federal government's Office of Personnel Management then appealed that ruling to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed the Merit Board, holding that the Park Service had legitimate reasons for reassigning Ms. Miller to Anchorage.
Yet the Park Service's determination to transfer Ms. Miller from Sitka was deemed "reprehensible" by U.S. Circuit Judge Evan Wallach. While Judge Wallach agreed with the court's majority that the Merit Systems Protection Board had wrongly approached Ms. Miller's case, he maintained that "it appears obvious to me that the agency’s actions were entirely pretextual and in bad faith."
Specifically, the Circuit judge wrote that the Park Service had crafted the job description for the Alaska Native Affairs Liaison in such a way " ... to obtain the desired result. It is obvious to me that the agency modified the standards and qualifications to make Ms. Miller the only person uniquely qualified, within the pool of employees that were considered for the position; that the agency’s actions were entirely pretextual; and that they were intended solely to present Ms. Miller with an improperly motivated Hobson’s choice. Such conduct by an agency of the United States is reprehensible."
In its ruling, reached in September, the Court of Appeals directed the Merit Systems Protection Board to reverse its decision. A final order supporting Ms. Miller's removal was filed on New Year's Eve and the Park Service appointed Neil Akana as acting superintendent for Sitka.
Comments
I'm glad this case puts a spotlight on pretext within management directed reassignments. I hope it also puts a spotlight on how the NPS takes corrective action on conduct and performance problems in superintendents. For a good case study, read about the problems at Effigy Mounds National Monument involving problems with not one but two former superintendents. The title of Superintendent shouldn't lower the bar on what leadership will tolerate with regards to conduct or performance.
I'm sure the number of people who will ever know the full story in Supt. Miller's directed reassignment is not large, not likely to ever include me, and not likely reflected in the court documents. I never worked for Sitka National Historical Park so I can't really say what was behind the high turnover in the linked newspaper article. If she was told her performance and conduct were acceptable when there were not, shame on leadership for not being direct and honest with her.
There are a lot of terrible federal employees that receive decent performance appraisals. Why do terrible performance receive decent appraisals? The work that goes into dealing with a bad performer is a full time job and supervisors don't want to deal with it. Therefore, they give the employee 3's-fully successful and walk away. And supervisors are afraid of being grieved.
That is why the NPS did what they did with her and gave her a decent appraisal. Her supervisor was up at the regional office and didn't see her on a daily basis and witness all the crap she was pulling. Superintendents also have tons of power, which she fully abused. The NPS couldn't really backtrack with her after they did their first appraisal with her. They didn't know how severe things were until well into a year or so of her being there.
Perhaps part of any supervisor's performance evaluation should include collection of evaluations provided by a large percentage of people supervised by the person.
As I understand it, Lee, that is the case now. And supposedly the results are provided to supervisors.
Mary Miller is not a valued employee, she thought of Sitka NHP as her park. She wasted millions of taxpayers dollars on stopping projects that she signed off on, her background is in engineering, the project was laid out with blue prints and scales, something she should have great knowledge in understanding. She signed off on the project and once the project was half way completed she alone decided to stop the project and waste taxpayers monies non reusable pieces that sit in a warehouse. That is just an example. The blame should also shine light on the Alaska regional office which did nothing to correct the issue. Joel Hart and Chris Pergiel spoke a very large game but in the end did nothing to assist the staff who were working under Mary Miller. The National Park Service has this blanket of a great organization and ability to stay out of the spotlight. So the picture is bigger than Mary Miller, the wrongs go all the way up the chain, ask any government employee outside of management and they will agree "you screw up, you move up" that is how the NPS does business. Visit Sitka NHP and you will see a happier workforce, a better management view. Are there still issues in Sitka? Yes, and like previously stated those issues fall on the hands of the regional office and their poor performance. Yes this is brief but hopefully an insight into a terrible work environment that finally can start to turn around and look forward to putting Mary Miller in the rearview mirror.
Does Mary have to repay the 2010-2013 salary and benefits she was awarded when reinstated in 2013? In 2013, "the U.S. Merit Systems Protet Board ordered the National Park Service to reinstate Miller, with back pay and benefits." (http://www.adn.com/article/20130405/claiming-discrimination-tlingit-nati...). This article also requires interest be paid (http://sitkasentinel.com/7/2012-05-10-22-08-10/local-news/5650-ruling-re...). So, a little less than 3 years as a GS-13 should be over $250,000!!! Now that's a story!
{This was a direct reply to Gila Monster's query about NPS positons being like Foreign Service pack on page 1. "Reply" doesn't seem to link comments. But now, I'm happy with both Kurt's original post, which didn't have the whole story, and especially with the comments from folks in the know about what went on at Sitka. I have seen several folks (professional but not superintendents) moved laterally rather than being fired for malfeasance, but those cases were actual malfeasance, not poor performance, and more or less consensual. I thought that the higher managers were being wimps for not biting the bullet, but maybe the make-work position is cheaper than the multi-year legal battle. I have also been told that it is almost impossible to remove someone for poor performance, so things need to be documented as specific actions rather than failure to perform. I think that the current system is broken for both good & bad employees: a good employee not in upper leadership shouldn't ever be faces with "move or be fired", and it should be possible to deal with a bad employee directly. I'm glad I don't supervise anyone.}
Not so much, actually. Permanent NPS positons are like most other GS-scale jobs*: in order to get a promotion and advance your career, you have to move to a new, different job. Until you get to a very high level (SES, _maybe_ GS-15), the job you have is the job you have, until you apply for a different position, have major malfeasance, or perform so poorly that you get pushed out. Many positions, including all or nearly all superintendents, are open to "status candidates" only, so only those currently in NPS permanent positions. Yes many careerists (good & bad) move among chief & then superintendent positions every few years in order to climb the ladder: a superintendent at a big park has almost certainly already been a superintendent at a medium park and a deputy at another big park, they likely were a chief ranger or division chief at one or more parks before their first superintendentship, a number of old timers started as LE rangers. The rest of the itinerant lifestyle in NPS is term positions, 1-4 years then you have to move and you don't have status as a permanent employee for applying to status-only openings, and seasonals, who either have ways of living cheaply in their off-season or else have to string together several parks each year just to have sufficient months of income to get by. [I find both rather abusive.]
That said, yes what's I've read about this situation seems odd. I have no idea what happened. Regional offices may be able to assign collateral duties or details (temporary posting) to superintendents, although I've never heard of a detail that didn't require applying and being selected. As of today Mary is still listed as Sitka Superintendent on the insideNPS AKR pages.
*[In contrast, NOAA fisheries have ZP instead of GS, so a position has a huge range of salaries and you start where you qualify but can get raises & promotions within the same position as your performance & experience & responsibilities and performance increase. In my opinion, repeated seasonals and term positions for permanent needs in NPS are abusive.]
The real issue here is not a single employee. It is the system that would appear to lend itself to a lack of accountability on the part of upper level management. An employee recieving a superior annual performance evaluation can be expected to believe he/she is carrying out their professional responsbilities in an acceptable manner in line with upper level management's expectations. It is the responsibility of upper level management to be apprised of situations that affect the performance of superintendents and others under their supervision. If, for whatever reason, the level of performance is not satisfactory, the senior supervisor is expected to council his subordinate and attempt to bring performance up to an acceptable level. Failure to carry out this responsibility and to permit a negative situation to further deteriorate unchecked until it reaches a crisis level is an indication of poor management on the part of responsible supervisory personnel. In other words, the buck stops at the top desk.
A common means of covering up a failure of upper level management supervision is to go the "Operations Evaluations" route. This is often a sudden announcement by the regional or area office that a indepth review will be conducted in a given park operation. A team is quickly assembled and sent to a particular park to carry out an indepth review of all aspects of the park. It is common knowledge that an OE is literally the kiss of death for a park manager and possibly other upper level employees in the park. When a park manager recieves notice of an OE it's probably time to pack his bags and hope he/she isn't sent into professional oblivion.
There actually is a workable system for resolving most performance problems in the NPS and elsewhere. It requires effort on the part of the responsible supervisor and a great deal of patience and persistence to make it work. It involves formal counciling sessions including documentation of concerns and plans to make corrections, follow-up checks on progress, etc. The employee in question is provided written summaries of counseling sessions and copies are sent to other concerned management personnel. I have used this system and believe it can work - even when the subject employee is ulitimately negatively affected.