Finally Facing the Shame of N.Y.

Finally facing the shame of New York: Cuomo and union will root out workers who fail the disabled

Bill Hammond, Daily News,  August 23, 2011
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Gov. Andrew Cuomo's deal with the Civil Service Employees Association ensures that the state's most vulnerable residents will be protected.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's deal with the Civil Service Employees Association ensures that the state's most vulnerable residents will be protected.

Gov. Cuomo's just-finalized contract with the Civil Service Employees Association marks a breakthrough for good government in New York - and one that has nothing to do with wages or benefits.

As part of the five-year deal, the CSEA agreed to reforms that will help the state root out workers who abuse or neglect the mentally disabled people they're supposed to be caring for.

It's an obscure clause that was overshadowed by the contract's three-year wage freeze, trimmed health benefits and first-ever furloughs for state workers - provisions that will save the state hundreds of millions of dollars while avoiding thousands of layoffs.

But protecting New York's taxpayers must take a backseat to protecting its most vulnerable citizens. To the great credit of Cuomo and the CSEA, this contract begins to take that moral imperative seriously.

Just how badly those citizens need protection became obvious in recent months, as The New York Times exposed widespread abuse and neglect in group homes operated by the state Office for People with Developmental Disabilities - with wrist-slap punishment or less for most offending employees. The paper found 399 abuse cases filed against 293 employees over three years. The state tried to fire 129 of the employees, and succeeded with only 30.

The rest got off with nothing worse than a warning or a short suspension. Eventually, the vast majority were allowed to go back to working with severely disabled children and adults - people who often cannot defend or even speak for themselves.

In too many cases, the abusers abused again.

The worst example was an employee of an upstate group home who was literally caught with his pants down, reportedly standing between the legs of a female patient. The man - who already had a record for assaulting a co-worker - was arrested and charged with rape after his semen was found on the victim's body.

He wasn't fired, but suspended and moved to another home.

At the heart of this culture of impunity is the state's badly broken system for disciplining and firing rogue workers.

Thanks to Civil Service laws and contractual protections, workers cannot be punished at any level without the right to a hearing before an outside arbitrator, jointly picked by managers and union representatives.

The odds of winning a termination case are so long that managers often choose to settle for a lesser punishment, such as a two-week suspension. Others look the other way entirely - and go after employees who try to blow the whistle.

It's a pattern you see throughout state and local government in New York: The rules make it so hard to get rid of bad or mediocre civil servants that management stops trying. Or it resorts to desperate alternatives - such as New York City's longstanding but finally defunct practice of parking unwanted teachers in "rubber rooms."

Cuomo has begun to tackle this inherited mess. But neither he nor the Legislature had power to change the disciplinary rules. This is because those rules were long ago written into labor contracts, giving public employee unions a veto over any reforms.

Thankfully, The Times' articles shamed both management and labor to action. Cuomo demanded disciplinary fixes from the CSEA. And the union agreed without insisting on concessions in return.

In a joint statement announcing the deal, the CSEA and Cuomo acknowledged the obvious: The current system "does not adequately protect our most vulnerable population in state care."

Under the new terms, the state and the CSEA will hash out a detailed schedule of punishments for various offenses - with immediate termination for the most serious cases of abuse, and escalating discipline for repeat offenders - and no more arbitrators making it up as they go along.

"This provides some very long overdue clarity and consistency, so it's really good news for us and the individuals in the system," said developmental disabilities office spokesman Travis Proulx.

Clearly, Cuomo and his agency have a long way to go. Patient advocate Michael Carey - himself the father of a disabled boy who died at the hands of state employees - points out that many managers who have been looking the other way, and failing to properly report abuse to law enforcement, are still on the job.

But firing the people who actually commit abuse has to come first - and Cuomo and the CSEA have taken a clear step in that direction. Good work.

whammond@nydailynews.com