Dayton employee fired for moonlighting gets job back

The city of Dayton must reinstate an employee it fired after the city alleged she worked a second job in conflict with her public employment and violated other personnel policies.

In its disciplinary proceedings, the city found Roberta Beyer failed to obtain permission from management before working a second job it says was incompatible with her position as a recreation facility specialist at the Dayton Convention Center.

Beyer, who was fired in February, also was found by the city of being unprofessional or rude to a client and requiring the city to pay overtime to another worker for a scheduling decision she made, city records said.

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But city policy did not clearly specify when employees were supposed to notify management about their outside employment or what constituted a conflict of interest or prohibited employment, according to the Civil Service Board’s decision ordering Beyer’s discharge be reduced to an unpaid suspension.

Earlier this year, the city updated its policies to require all employees to seek departmental approval before seeking outside employment, and several employees have been notified their second jobs are in conflict with their city responsibilities.

Beyer has worked with the city as a recreation facility specialist at the Dayton Convention Center since 2010. She was first hired by the city in 1997.

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Beyer’s attorney declined to comment for this article. We have contacted the city of Dayton and will update this story when we receive a response.

In February, the city fired Beyer after ruling she violated three of its personnel policies and procedures.

The city said an investigation found that she did not get permission from management before working for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, a union representing technicians, artists and crafts persons in the entertainment industry.

She did work at various locations, including at the Wright State Nutter Center and Schuster Center.

The city said the employment interfered with the performance of her work responsibilities at the convention center.

The city also concluded she scheduled an employee to work four hours of overtime and acted unprofessionally toward a client last November.

Beyer had “extensive” personal problems when she acted unprofessionally and should have taken the day off or should have been told to go home, the civil service board decision states.

But the Civil Service Board ruled against city claims that she was incompetent, inefficient or neglected duty.

The board, however, found Beyer neglected her duty to be fiscally responsible by scheduling the employee to work overtime, but they said the error did not merit her being fired.

The board also ruled that she did not violate the city’s code of ethics or personnel policies related to her outside job.

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Since 1992, city code has prohibited employees from engaging in incompatible employment, but it does not define or provide examples of what is prohibited by the charter or interferes with workers’ government job responsibilities, the board said.

The city in 2012 updated its policy to say that employees cannot have other jobs that hurt the quality or quantity of their job responsibilities or hold jobs that conflict with their “duties, obligations and loyalties” to the city.

Employees needed management approval when the supplemental employment was related to their city of Dayton positions, but employees were left to “police themselves,” and Beyer did not believe her other job conflicted with her city employment or required approval by her department’s director, the board said.

“Finally, there was no convincing evidence that appellant’s supplemental employment adversely affected her work for the city of Dayton,” the board’s decision states.

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In recent months, the city has issued letters to employees about the revised supplemental employment policy, and employees were required to submit requests to engage in additional work, city spokeswoman Toni Bankston said last month.

The city now has an ethics committee that considers requests for outside employment from city employees, and 11 requests went before the committee, Bankston told this newspaper last month.

Records obtained by this news organization indicate that three members of the Dayton Fire Department in September were told that their outside employment requests conflict with the their city positions.

They were told they would “forfeit their employment with the city” if they chose to engage in that supplemental work.

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