He has issued a ruling on the petition of Police Sergeant James Deleon Guerrero and other police officers for a judicial review of the department’s hiring decisions.
DPS admitted that Police Officer Alfred Celis was hired pursuant to a notice of personnel action on Dec. 23, 2007 and that his hiring was contrary to the government’s financial austerity measure.
Celis was promoted from police officer II to police sergeant, but was later demoted by DPS.
The issues brought before Wiseman included the following: Whether the plaintiffs have standing to bring this suit; whether the relief the plaintiffs requested has been fully complied with rendering the petition for judicial review moot; whether the promotion of Officer Celis was illegal; whether the hiring of Officer Vicente Tagabuel and Officer Paul Ogumoro violated the Personnel Service Rules and Regulations; and whether attorney’s fees and costs should be awarded to plaintiffs.
Wiseman ruled that “Celis was promoted in violation of austerity regulations, the governor’s directive, the PSRR’s, and the Civil Service Act; however since he was subsequently demoted this issue is now moot.”
“While the court is not as concerned with what motivated the decision to demote Officer Celis,” Wiseman added, “the court is concerned with the importance of maintaining public confidence in government agency actions as well as government functions. The court will not be swayed by collateral arguments as to why Officer Celis was demoted, but instead will concentrate on the illegality of his promotion.”
Wiseman said then-Police Officer II Celis “leapfrogged” over the position of police officer III and jumped to the highest salary level for a DPS sergeant, thereby receiving a pay raise of $14,895.15 per annum.
“The court finds this extremely troubling since such type of promotion is unprecedented in any type of job, especially that of a police officer. Officer Celis should have served at least two years as a police officer III before even being considered for the position of sergeant. In addition, if the plaintiffs’ allegations are true that the governor told then-DPS Commissioner Rebecca Warfield to sign off on the personnel action, this was extremely improper and tends to support allegations of discriminatory hiring practices.”
However, Wiseman said any relief being requested involving Celis is “moot” since the matter had already been remedied by the officer’s demotion.
Wiseman said the motion by DPS, represented by the Attorney General’s Office, for summary judgment was granted in part since the desk audit and Celis’ demotion have already been complied with.
Wiseman also granted the motion for summary judgment filed by Deleon Guerrero and his fellow petitioners, represented by attorney Robert Torres, since there are no material facts in dispute that Celis was unlawfully promoted in violation of the PSRR’s and the Civil Service Act.
Wiseman said the issues of material fact still exist as to: (1) whether Officer Tagabuel and Officer Ogumoro were hired in violation of the PSRR’s; and (2) whether the governor’s directive made the plaintiffs’ request for an order ending discriminatory practices and disparate treatment moot.
Torres, in an e-mail to the Variety, said: “The court’s decision confirmed what Sergeant Guerrero had been asserting all along which was ignored by DPS management: that the Civil Service Act and the personnel rules prohibited the ‘leapfrogging’ of an officer over other officers. That it was wrong and only after forcing the issue did DPS finally concede that Sergeant Guerrero was correct.”
Torres said DPS also “conceded, apparently, that a desk audit was necessary. Management Analysis Inc. did the audit, but just doing it doesn’t mean that it ‘did it’ to correct the problem of having officer work beyond their ranks and pay level doing a higher rank duty for lower pay level. It remains to be seen if the recommendations will be carried out.”
