Winter Springs commissioners will discuss on Monday a proposal from Commissioner Mark Caruso to rebuild the city's whistleblower rules so that complaints involving top officials are investigated by someone outside the normal chain of command.
The item is on the regular agenda for the City Commission meeting at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 26, at City Hall, 1126 East State Road 434. It is listed for discussion; the agenda packet does not include draft policy language or a staff recommendation.
What the city has now
The current Anti-Fraud and Whistleblower Protection Policy was adopted by resolution in October 2023. It names the city manager as the person in charge of investigations under the policy, lets the manager decide which officials conduct non-criminal inquiries and gives the manager the final disposition. Reports that are clearly unsupported are closed as unsubstantiated without an investigation.
Employees who feel they are facing retaliation are told to contact the city manager or their department director.
What Caruso is asking for
In an Oct. 19 email to City Manager Kevin Sweet, included in the packet, Caruso called the 2023 resolution "an important first step" and listed changes he wants the commission to consider:
- Sending complaints that involve the city manager, elected officials, department directors, supervisors or anyone with a conflict of interest to outside counsel, an independent investigator or another authority the commission designates.
- Setting deadlines, such as acknowledging a report within five business days, a first determination within 15 business days and updates in writing to the person who reported every 30 days.
- Protecting reports of waste, abuse, policy and regulatory violations, public-safety and environmental concerns, and falsified records, not only fraud.
- Making retaliation its own violation, with a defined list that includes demotion, cut hours, denied promotions and unjustified negative evaluations, and extending protection to witnesses.
- An independent review of any significant adverse action taken against an employee within 12 months of a protected report, which he wrote would not amount to an automatic finding of retaliation.
- Regular aggregate reports to the commission on how many complaints arrive, how many are substantiated and how long investigations take.
Caruso also asked that the policy spell out the limits of confidentiality, noting that the city's online form warns that email addresses sent to the city count as public records in Florida.
The same agenda includes a separate discussion item on the Police Department and the city manager's annual report.
Sources
winterspringsfl.granicus.com
winterspringsfl.granicus.com
winterspringsfl.granicus.com
