County HR chief suspended

The punishment, for comments against Diane Rowden, also locks her out of picking a county administrator.

By BARBARA BEHRENDT, Times Staff Writer
Published January 12, 2008

ADVERTISEMENT Barbara Dupre, the county human resources director, has a long-standing feud with Rowden. [Maurice Rivenbark | Times (2002)]

BROOKSVILLE - Hernando County Human Resources Director Barbara Dupre has been suspended for five days without pay for her verbal attack on County Commissioner Diane Rowden.

In addition, after she returns, Dupre will be on probation for six months and could be fired if she is involved in "any further misconduct," according to a letter sent Friday by interim county administrator Larry Jennings.

Jennings went a step further and barred Dupre from having any involvement in choosing the next county administrator, a significant step because three county administrator finalists set to be interviewed Jan. 22 were selected using a process that Dupre herself organized.

Dupre could not be reached for comment Friday. Her troubles began in October when Jennings and then-county administrator Gary Kuhl were told by Rowden that Dupre had candidates' petition cards in her office in the county building. A county policy, developed by Dupre, prohibits any campaign activity by county employees while at work.

Kuhl wrote a letter to Dupre after finding those cards in plain view. While noting that she had not violated the county policy, Kuhl said she had shown poor judgment. Dupre has declined to identify the candidates for whom she was collecting signatures.

Kuhl's letter did not make it into her personnel file, and Dupre said she simply had not had time to file it. Dupre went on to say that she suspected Rowden or someone the commissioner knows of rifling through personal belongings in her office after hours and then alerting Kuhl.

Dupre said in a news story this week that she did not believe she had done anything wrong at the time and that she did not think that Kuhl's letter was a disciplinary action that belonged in her file.

When Jennings questioned her about those statements on Wednesday, she repeated them to him. Then she denied making statements that appeared in recent news stories. Her comments about her comments to the media largely led to her punishment.

"You did not appear to accept any real responsibility for the controversy that your media comments created," Jennings concluded in his letter to Dupre.

"You have clearly undermined the reputation of Commissioner Rowden by making unsubstantiated accusations about her conduct, which is in violation of Hernando County policy. You have committed insubordination by your failure to accept Gary Kuhl's decision concerning the appropriateness of keeping campaign cards in your office and by your decision to not place his letter in your personnel file, despite his specific instruction to do so," Jennings wrote.

"Your conduct has embarrassed me, the commissioners, the county's residents and all of your fellow employees," he wrote.

The suspension takes effect immediately. Dupre will be allowed back to work on Jan. 22 (Monday, Jan. 21, is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a county holiday).

Rowden had little to say about Dupre's punishment other than, "I have no comments other than to support Larry Jennings as our administrator and his administrative decision."

The feud between Rowden and Dupre is long-standing. The two clashed several years ago when county employees attempted to unionize. Dupre was openly opposed to those efforts. At one point Rowden chided Dupre and another county official for giggling through the speech of a union organizer at commission meeting. In another instance, Rowden told Dupre's husband that she hated Dupre; Rowden later apologized.

Most recently, Rowden was sharply critical of Dupre's process for picking the finalists for the new county administrator. She said she did not believe that Dupre should be involved in picking her new boss.

When the dust-up over the campaign cards surfaced, Dupre said she found it "curious" that the cards had been reported to Rowden, "the one who has had it out for me for all this time."

Barbara Behrendt can be reached at behrendt@sptimes.com or (352) 848-1434.

[Last modified January 11, 2008, 20:53:27]