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When government workers are hired, the public likely expects that these employees — who are paid with taxpayer dollars — are fully vetted before beginning their jobs. In the case of some public employees, this assumption is wrong.
As the Bangor Daily News Maine Focus team has chronicled, disciplinary records and other documents that may disqualify someone from a job are too often shielded from public scrutiny, and even from the public officials making hiring decisions.
In the most recent instance the team has reported on, a police chief in the town of Millinocket was hired despite past incidents that raise serious concerns about his credibility and leadership. In less than two years, that decision resulted in the town agreeing to pay $240,000 in settlements with two officers who complained of harassment and bullying by the chief, plus tens of thousands of dollars in additional legal fees. There was also a citizen petition drive calling for the termination of the chief, town manager and town attorney and, in December, the Millinocket Police Department was dissolved.
This situation may have been avoided if town officials had access to agreements and documentation about the chief’s previous actions.
Similarly, confidentiality and poor record keeping has enabled county sheriff employees with poor disciplinary records to move from department to department, which the BDN also detailed.
Bills currently under consideration in the Maine Legislature would improve transparency and accountability. This is an important start to ensuring that law enforcement personnel with troubling pasts don’t move from department to department.
“There has been a recent series done in the Maine Focus section of the Bangor Daily News by several investigative reporters clearly showing there is a serious problem of lack of oversight of law enforcement statewide and agencywide. As with other issues plaguing our state, prevention seems like a more efficient way to start,” Susan D’Alessandro of Millinocket told the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee last month in support of two of the bills. “However, the veil of secrecy has somehow taken over our state and prevents potential employers from knowing the history of a person who is trusted with protecting people’s lives. Sadly, the genie is out of the bottle and in my opinion, these bills are a start to correcting that serious problem.”
In Millinocket, Craig Worster began his job as police chief in April 2019. He was hired by the town manager, with little input or oversight from the town’s board of selectmen.
Worster came to Millinocket from Wiscasset where he had been a sergeant with the police department. He resigned from that job in December 2018 after an internal investigation. Worster agreed to resign and Wiscasset agreed to only talk about the investigation if asked and, if that happened, to only say the investigation had been closed without findings, according to a legal agreement reached between the two sides. The purpose of the internal investigation remains hidden from public view, the BDN reported.
In 2015, Worster resigned from the police department in Ridgefield, Connecticut, the day after he was questioned as part of another internal investigation. The inquiry determined he made “sexually explicit comments, innuendo” and that his behavior created a “hostile work environment,” according to the internal investigation report.
After Worster left Wiscasset, the local district attorney’s office took the unusual step of presenting information to a defendant that called Worster’s credibility as a court witness into question, according to the BDN. A district attorney’s decision to brand an officer as potentially not credible can damage or end an officer’s career and imperil criminal prosecutions with which they’re involved.
While Worster was chief, two of his employees filed complaints against him, alleging bullying, harassment and other undisclosed actions. The town paid $240,000 to settle claims from the former employees.
In September, the town council fired the town manager who hired Worster. A new town manager fired Worster in December. A few days later, the town council disbanded the police department and handed over policing duties to neighboring East Millinocket.
In February, the Millinocket Personnel Appeals Board reversed Worster’s firing, essentially giving him back a job that no longer exists.
We don’t know for sure if better transparency and sharing of personnel records could have avoided this saga, but it sure seems likely.
“I don’t think the public is going to stand for this being so opaque forever. Nor should they. You should be able to know,” Lincoln County District Attorney Natasha Irving told the BDN. “These are people paid by the taxpayers to protect and serve.”
Most law enforcement officers serve admirably, sometimes putting their lives at risk to protect their communities. That’s why it is so important for misconduct to be clearly reported and acted upon so that such instances do not take away from that admirable service.
The Legislature is on the right track in considering changes to require transparency and to end the era of shielding disciplinary records of public employees from public view.
