Opinion ID: 202153
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Plaintiff Aguiar

Text: 5 On April 7, 2000, Aguiar was appointed Executive Director of the Tourism Development Fund, a trust position, 2 with a salary of $77,200. That salary was increased to $82,227 on July 12, 2000. In August 2000, the GDB Human Resources Office prepared an announcement for the position of Assistant Director of Private Finance. The requirements for the position included: 6 (a) Bachelor's Degree in Accounting or Finance from an accredited university or college; Six years of experience in loan analysis and administration, two of those years in personnel supervision functions; Bilingual (Spanish and English); or in its place; 7 (b) Master's Degree in Accounting or Finance from an accredited university or college; Five years of experience in loan analysis and administration, two of those years in personnel supervision; Bilingual (Spanish and English). 8 Jaime López (López), Director of Private Finance at GDB, reviewed these requirements before the announcement was published, met with Aguiar to discuss his eligibility for the position, and subsequently eliminated the education prerequisites and the requirements for experience in loan analysis and administration. In their stead, he established a much lower threshold of qualifications for the job — namely, six years of experience in analysis and administration of private sector financing, two of which must have entailed the planning and coordination of financing services including personnel supervision. Despite the fact that GDB had classified the position of Assistant Director of Private Finance as one that categorically required a degree in accounting or finance, the announcement was published with no such requirements. Aguiar does not have a degree in accounting or finance and would not have been eligible for the position if López had not changed the requirements. 9 Aguiar applied for the position of Assistant Director of Private Finance and was appointed, effective September 7, 2000, subject to the standard six month probationary period. At that time, Aguiar's qualifications for the position included four years and eleven months' experience in analysis and administration of private sector financing, two of which related to planning and coordination of financing services. When he was certified as eligible for the position, one additional year of employment experience — during which time he served as an administrative officer — was counted toward the requirement of six years' experience in the analysis and administration of private sector financing, despite the fact that his duties as an administrative officer did not include those activities. 10 The position of Assistant Director of Private Finance was a permanent career position, with an annual salary of $58,900. Aguiar continued to occupy the position of Executive Director of the Tourism Development Fund, for which he received a differential compensation of $23,100 annually. The sum of his salary and the differential was $82,230, which is the same salary that he had received as Executive Director of the Tourism Development Fund prior to his promotion. According to GDB Personnel Regulations, a differential can only be authorized, with written justification, when the geographic location, the extraordinary job conditions or the extraordinary difficulties regarding recruitment or retention of personnel in certain positions justify the use of additional incentives to the ordinary salary. There is no evidence on the record of a valid justification for the differential. 11 On June 6, 2001, Agosto notified Aguiar that serious irregularities had been identified with regard to his appointment as Assistant Director of Private Finance. These included a) the impermissible elimination of the educational prerequisite from the published requirements for the position; b) the fact that Aguiar did not have the six years' required relevant experience; and c) the fact that Aguiar simultaneously occupied two positions at GDB. After an administrative hearing during which Aguiar had the opportunity to present evidence, his appointment was declared null and void, and he was reinstated to a previous position — Administrative and Finance Officer at the Tourism Development Fund, effective July 17, 2001.