TCHC head could lose job after review
Ombudsman’s report into hiring, firing practices of execs outlines alleged improprieties, sources say
The city ombudsman is preparing to release a damaging report that could cost Toronto Community Housing Corp. chief executive officer Gene Jones his job.
The report, to be made public Tuesday morning, will reveal the results of ombudsman Fiona Crean’s investigation into the TCHC’s hiring, firing and promotion practices during Jones’s high-turnover two-year tenure. Two sources said the report will describe multiple alleged improprieties by senior executives — and that Jones could be at risk of being fired by the board of directors.
The board has scheduled a special meeting for Tuesday afternoon to discuss the report behind closed doors. As a corporation, the TCHC is allowed to hold debates and votes in private without disclosing even the general nature of the matters being discussed.
Jones has been given a draft of the report and an opportunity to provide a response before it is finalized.
A TCHC spokeswoman and board chair Bud Purves said they could not comment on anything related to the investigation, since “the respondent and any others involved in an ombudsman enquiry are bound by confidentiality throughout the process.” Jones was hired in mid-2012 to overhaul the TCHC in the wake of a 2011 spending and procurement scandal. But his tenure has been rocky, and numerous employees have approached the ombudsman and the media with detailed complaints about the way he and his management team have conducted their extensive personnel shakeup. A separate ombudsman investigation in 2013 found the TCHC had continued to needlessly evict seniors who had not paid their rent. In February, the board decided to publicly discipline Jones rather than fire him after a probe by a law firm found he had “failed to exercise proper management oversight and follow board processes and procedures.” That investigation looked into two specific allegations — one that Jones unilaterally terminated chief operating officer Kathleen LlewellynThomas, who had been hired only four months earlier, while claiming she resigned. The ombudsman’s new investigation studied the company’s human resources practices more broadly. In a preliminary August 2013 letter viewed by the Star, Crean told Jones that the investigation would “examine TCHC’s adherence to recruitment policies in the hiring and promotion of staff.” The probe was later broadened to include firings as well.
The report may affect the mayoral election. Mayor Rob Ford is an outspoken supporter of Jones, and he continues to argue that they have together succeeded in turning around the long-troubled company that houses 164,000 people.
One of the four paragraphs on the home page of Ford’s campaign website says: “Faced with a major leadership crisis at Toronto Community Housing Corp. and a broad loss of public confidence in the agency, Mayor Rob Ford acted decisively to remove the board of directors and senior management team and replace them with a skills-based board that has made major progress in restoring public and tenant faith.”
Ford said of Jones in February: “He will not be dismissed as long as I’m mayor.”
The TCHC paid severance to 26 people fired without cause in 2013, Jones’s first full year on the job. The payout, $1.6 million, was up 57 per cent from 2011. Spokeswoman Sara Goldvine argued in February that the firings were necessary to “strengthen the company’s performance and restore its credibility with residents and the public.”