COUNTY CIVIL SERVICE PANEL UPHOLDS FIRING OF SOCIAL WORKER

He was found to have accessed case file to try to get date

San Diego County officials have upheld the firing of a social worker who repeatedly accessed a client’s file and then asked her out for dinner and drinks.

The employee, whose identity is confidential under county personnel rules, was fired in 2021 for violating multiple Health and Human Services Agency policies.

Among other violations, he contacted her during non-business hours and suggested they “have a few drinks,” newly released records show. He appealed his firing to the Civil Service Commission, which held hearings and then voted to uphold it.

“The employee is guilty of acts incompatible with or inimical to the public service,” the commission records show. “He accessed a customer’s confidential CALWORKS file using the CALWIN system for personal reasons, not for any legitimate business purposes.”

According to the newly disclosed report, the unidentified man improperly accessed the woman’s file more than 75 times in June 2021, though he never updated it to reflect any new developments.

“Using the information from those records, the employee obtained the customer’s personal wireless telephone number and called her at least four times over a two-week period, while outside of business hours, with no valid business purpose,” the commission records state.

The client was a domestic-violence victim who had fled Texas with her three small children.

“These off-hours telephone calls from the employee’s personal wireless phone made (the woman) uneasy (at best) and scared (at worst), particularly as she was a victim of domestic violence, and a single mother of three children, facts known to the employee,” the commission said.

The harassment came to light in 2021 after the client’s public-assistance benefits were cut.

Her benefits had been reduced after she was unable to produce a birth record for her youngest child, having fled Texas without the document. A different caseworker was assigned to consider her appeal.

The subsequent investigation found that the fired caseworker accessed the woman’s file 76 times to learn details about her personal circumstances, as well as her contact information. He called her after hours and invited her out.

“He suggested to S.C. that ‘maybe you’d like to go home, have a few drinks’,” the commission report said. “When asked what he meant by that, he testified that he was thinking ‘Hey, you know what, just have some coffee, maybe tea.’”

In separate interviews, “both (the woman) and the employee acknowledged to the internal investigators that he told (her) that he was ‘expecting a steak dinner,’ implying because of his help on her file,” the commission findings show.

Later, the ex-worker “claimed (she) had invited him to dinner, and he felt that was inappropriate,” the commission report added.

The Civil Service Commission is an independent panel of appointees who evaluate claims filed by county employees who are disciplined or terminated. The commission holds public meetings to vote on recommendations from individual commissioners who investigate claims.