Opinion ID: 201249
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Change of Administration and Alteration of the Job Classification Plan

Text: 4 On November 7, 2000, general elections were held in Puerto Rico. In the municipality of Toa Baja, defendant Victor J. Santiago, the PDP candidate for mayor of Toa Baja, defeated the incumbent NPP candidate, Victor Soto, who had been mayor for sixteen years. In total, the NPP had controlled the municipal government of Toa Baja for twenty-four years prior to the 2000 election. 5 Upon taking office, the new administration apparently faced several challenges. Among them were issues related to personnel actions and human resources plans that were detailed in several documents, including an audit from the Comptroller of Puerto Rico, dated June 14, 2000; a letter from the Commonwealth's Central Office for the Administration of Personnel and Human Resources (known by its acronym OCALARH, which is based on the Spanish version of the office's name); and another letter from the Office of the Commissioner for Municipal Affairs (similarly known as OCAP). 1 These documents addressed personnel issues of the municipality. In Puerto Rico, all municipal jobs are governed by so-called job classification plans that are adopted locally. These plans set forth the occupational groups and personnel structure of the municipality, including the primary responsibilities and employment requirements for each position in city government. The salaries for various jobs are set forth in a separate salary scale that establishes the salary for each job by classification. 6 From time to time, municipalities revise their job classification plans. Toa Baja undertook this task in 1997, when it altered the then-existing job classification plan that had been adopted in 1991. 2 According to the Comptroller's report, the 1997 changes were not valid alterations to the 1991 plan because they were not first submitted for approval to OCALARH, and past municipal administrations had appointed several hundred employees in violation of the relevant state law and regulations. The report also recommended both that the municipality put in place a system for the selection and recruitment of personnel and that the administration develop a corrective action plan to remedy the various illegalities cited therein. 3 7 Defendants then undertook a review of the personnel files of all 1,300 or so municipal employees. Defendants claim that they did so because, according to the Comptroller's report, [n]ot addressing the recommendations of the audit ... without just cause[ ] may constitute a violation [of] ... the Government Ethics Act. Plaintiff maintains that the defendants sought to retaliate against members of the NPP. As of May 2002, at the time of the trial, around six hundred files had been evaluated, including Vázquez's. Of those, 281 employees had sought an informal hearing regarding the personnel action that resulted from the review. 8