Dozens call state to appeal firings

Ducey set up hotline after Republic report on DES

Fired state workers wanting their terminations reviewed lit up the phone lines Monday at the state Department of Administration’s human-resources office after Gov. Doug Ducey pledged to allow employees who felt they were wrongly terminated to appeal to get their jobs back.

The Department of Administration said it had received 71 telephone calls as of 4 p.m. Monday from people appealing their terminations. One receptionist described being “inundated” with calls. At least three receptionists were answering phones, though some calls went to an answering machine. Those who left messages were told they would be contacted within two days.

Former employees interested in appealing should call 602-542-5482.

Ducey decided to permit appeals last week, after The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com reported on hundreds of potentially questionable firings at the Department of Economic Security. The Republic also found involuntary separations — firings — had skyrocketed among all state agencies to roughly 1,600 under Ducey’s administration. The governor and his agency directors have used a controversial 2012 personnel reform law to shrink state government through terminations, many of them without cause.

A backlash has ensued, as those fired included Arizonans with serious illnesses and single mothers who lost health-care benefits for themselves

and dependent children.

Until Ducey created the hotline, at-will employees had no recourse to fight for their jobs. However, there is no guarantee they will be hired back.

“They will need to gather the facts on a caseby-case basis,” said Daniel Scarpinato, the governor’s spokesman. “We are reviewing these issues, and that is where we are at at this point.”

One of those who appealed Monday was Estella Lugo, a 49-year-old fired at DES last year while battling breast cancer.

“I want my pay back,” said Lugo, a single mother of five children whose oldest son has disabilities. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Lugo said the ADOA employee who took her call wanted to know when she was fired and the name of her supervisor. Lugo was asked to submit additional details in an email.

All state personnel files already indicate an employee’s final salary, last supervisor and any disciplinary actions taken against a worker.

The majority of DES workers fired since Ducey took office were women, minorities and those older than 40, according to records obtained by The Republic. Roughly 72 percent of those fired were older employees. Tim Jeffries, DES director, said the firings at his agency mirror the demographics of his workforce, but he did not provide records to back that claim up.

The Republic found roughly half of those fired at DES had such outstanding performance reviews that they received merit bonuses the past two years. At least two dozen workers alleged to The Republic that managers at DES targeted them because of their gender, age or race. Others said they believed they were targeted because they had a disability or were gay.

Lugo said she now works two jobs, including four nights a week at a clothing company, to make ends meet.

She believes Jeffries has smeared her and other fired DES workers with his statements that he has fired “bullies … liars and multi-year bad actors” and that fired DES employees had “exited themselves” from the social services agency by their own doing.

The Governor’s Office last week stripped Jeffries of the ability to fire any more employees, but said Monday that Jeffries, a friend and political contributor of Ducey’s, would stay on the job.

Ducey had less tolerance for Juvenile Corrections Director Dona Markley, whom he forced out in early September following a handful of questionable firings at her agency this summer. One of those that Markley fired was fighting breast cancer, much like Lugo.

Markley contended in her complaint that she was fired because she is a woman and said the Governor’s Office treated male agency directors differently.

But Ducey, since taking office in January 2015, has fired male agency directors at the state Lottery, the Department of Child Safety, and the Department of Weights and Measures. All agency directors serve at the pleasure of the governor.

Lugo, meanwhile, made nearly $49,000 to supervise an adult protective services hotline.

She said she was fired for no reason on May 22, 2015 — the same day she was going to attend the funeral of another DES worker.

While she has found work, Lugo said she is not making as much as she was at the DES. She also said DES managers knew she was fighting breast cancer when they fired her.

“If I did something wrong, why wasn’t I given the opportunity to fix it?” she said, choking up. “Getting fired was the most horrible feeling in the world.”