By Adam Pagnucco.
Montgomery County Inspector General Megan Davey Limarzi has issued a memorandum of investigation finding problems with the Office of Human Rights’ intake and handling of complaints. According to a press release from the Office of Inspector General (OIG):
The investigation substantiated that Human Rights does not effectively track inquiries and exceeded its established timeframe for completing investigations and issuing determinations. The investigation also revealed that Human Rights has failed to fully implement recommendations made in a 2020 OIG report which also examined, among other things, allegations of processing delays. The OIG subsequently issued recommendations aimed at improving tracking, increasing efficiency, guiding the work done by Human Rights, and elevating staff competencies.
The Office of Human Rights enforces county worker protection laws and anti-discrimination laws through receiving and investigating complaints. It also has a work sharing program with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in which it investigates 60 federal complaints per year. The office employs five compliance investigators and handles 200-250 complaints annually.
In responding to a complaint about the office, the OIG found three sets of issues.
Intake Process
Despite the Office of Human Rights’ establishment in 1960, the OIG found that the office did not have a central repository or process for tracking inquiries until it created a spreadsheet for doing so in late 2022, and that sheet was not routinely used until May 2023. The OIG stated, “Human Rights has no written guidance outlining how the intake log should be completed, and the log itself does not contain titles or descriptions indicating the information to be included in each column. Similarly, there is no indication on the intake log that investigators are required to include the date they responded to the inquiry or the final disposition of the inquiry (i.e. the inquiry was closed, complaint was filed).”
In reviewing the log, the OIG found many instances of incomplete records on complaints. For example, the OIG stated, “…We found that 25% (144) of the fields where we would have expected to find information about the initial action taken, and 83% (477) of the fields where we would have expected to find information on further actions taken were left blank.” The OIG added, “The lack of dates and incomplete information also hinders Human Rights’ ability to assess timeliness in responding to inquiries and their ability to evaluate the actions taken by investigators, identify trends, and analyze or query historical data.”
Here’s a question. If the data is this bad, how is the office’s director supposed to evaluate the performance of its inspectors?
Complaint Process
The OIG found many problems in the handling of complaints. The OIG stated, “We found that Human Rights did not have policies and procedures that dictated how investigative files should be maintained. Although every case has a corresponding paper file, we noted that case related information and documentation was stored using a variety of methods, including paper files, electronic files, and/or the ARC system. Furthermore, each storage method could contain differing case related records.”
When the OIG looked at a sample of case records, it found that a majority of them exceeded the office’s guideline of 440 days to process, investigate and issue a letter of determination. It found that three of them took more than 800 days before a letter of determination was issued. What happened to these complainants in the meantime?
Compliance with Previous OIG Recommendations
In 2020, the OIG found similar issues at the Office of Human Rights and issued a series of recommendations for improvements. But the office apparently did not comply, as the OIG wrote, “…We found that Human Rights still has not drafted policies and procedures to govern the full extent of their responsibilities or implemented mandatory training requirements or continuing education for staff, as recommended in our 2020 report.”
James L. Stowe, the current director of the Office of Human Rights, was first hired in 2008. The current OIG report does not mention this, but in 2012, the OIG issued a report critical of Human Rights’ use of county purchasing cards. At that time, the OIG wrote, “We questioned almost 45% of the transactions made with OHR’s Purchasing Cards (P-Cards), either because the transactions were not in compliance with the County’s policies and procedures governing P-Card use with respect to documentation requirements, or because they were questionable with respect to the purposes of the purchases. We found that OHR also did not comply with County P-Card transaction review policy.”
This is now the third OIG report finding problems with the Office of Human Rights during Stowe’s tenure, and it alleges that the office has not corrected deficiencies identified in the second report.
The Office of Human Rights is not well managed. The county executive and the chief administrative officer must impose accountability.