By Mara H. Gottfried
Pioneer Press
ST. PAUL, Minn. — On the day Tim Butler stepped down as St. Paul fire chief and into a lesser role at the fire department, the city closed two investigations employees had filed against him.
St. Paul Human Resources Director Angie Nalezny said she could not provide information about the complaints, which indicates Butler was not disciplined. Generally, information about a complaint against a government employee in Minnesota becomes public only if he or she is disciplined.
Nalezny said she could not comment on why the investigations were closed when Butler was no longer fire chief, though she said the city had no agreement with him about the terms of his resignation.
The city of St. Paul typically halts an internal investigation when an employee resigns. In this case, Butler remains a city employee and is now fire emergency management and communications chief.
Mike Smith, president of St. Paul International Association of Fire Fighters Local 21, said a city staff member told him the complaints against Butler went away because he’s no longer fire chief.
Smith said it would be unfair to other employees if the city closed the investigations into Butler before they reached a conclusion.
“My members are asking if this is going to be a precedent setter -- can they take a reduction in rank and a complaint against them goes away,” asked Smith, who’s in charge of the rank-and-file firefighters union. “My opinion is you can’t change titles and they go away, if you’re still a member of the department or a member of the city.”
Nalezny said every case is different and would be handled case by case.
Butler did not return messages seeking comment.
Butler, who was St. Paul’s fire chief for a decade, announced on Oct. 21 that he would resign as chief two days later but continue working at the fire department. Under the city charter, classified employees who are appointed to an unclassified position retain the rights to go back to a formerly held classified title, according to Nalezny. Butler’s salary was $146,910 as fire chief and is $114,000 in his new position.
On Oct. 10, the deputy mayor issued Butler a written reprimand, after an investigation concluded he retaliated against an employee the year before.
The discipline came two days after Smith filed a complaint against Butler on behalf of a different employee, alleging he used a derogatory term -- “blue falcon” -- in the subject line of an email to the firefighter. The term is a military euphemism that stands for “buddy (expletive).”
Butler, a retired U.S. Coast Guard and Coast Guard Reserve officer, has said the slang refers to a person who blames someone else, while trying to maintain their own advantage. He has said that he did not call the firefighter a derogatory term and noted that he merely intended the subject line to refer to the firefighter’s actions, but he also said the phrase was “unprofessional and uncalled for” and he apologized.
Butler was the subject of three other complaints by employees since late 2015: Two were investigated and closed last year without discipline and another had remained under investigation at the time he announced his resignation.
On Oct. 23, the city of St. Paul closed the two pending complaints into Butler.
Phil Villaume, an employee attorney based in Bloomington, said government agencies will normally complete investigations, regardless of whether an employee moves into another position. If an employee makes an allegation of misconduct against another worker, a city typically wants to finish an investigation because they want to show they did their due diligence in the event that the employee files a lawsuit, Villaume said.
Though, Villaume noted it’s possible that the city of St. Paul felt they had gathered enough information into the complaints against Butler to make decisions and closed the cases accordingly.
St. Paul spent $50,331 to hire outside staff to investigate seven complaints against fire department employees last year and $18,873 for four investigations by outside staff this year, according to the city. The costs cover all external investigations, not only cases involving Butler, according to Jason Schmidt, St. Paul labor relations manager.
The city decides on a case-by-case basis about whether to hire an external investigator, Schmidt said. They weigh the current workload of the human resources specialist assigned to the department, the scope of the potential investigation and the seriousness of the alleged violations, he said.
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