A national park superintendent who was highly valued for her performance and skills has been fired by the National Park Service for refusing to accept a job 500 miles away from her home and family.
While Mary A. Miller, superintendent at Sitka National Historical Park in Alaska, initially was successful in appealing her dismissal, a federal appellate court overturned a decision by the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board and Ms. Miller was escorted out of the park by the chief ranger on New Year's Eve.
Park Service officials in Alaska decided in 2010 to shift Superintendent Miller from the historical park to a new position as Alaska Native Affairs Liaison in Anchorage, 500 miles away. When she declined the reassignment, claiming she was not qualified for the role and that it would be a hardship because of her family situation, the Park Service fired her. Ms. Miller then appealed that decision to the Merit Systems Protection Board, which overturned her dismissal.
In gathering testimony on Ms. Miller's appeal, the Merit Board heard from the Park Service how it "had a high regard for the appellant’s performance as the superintendent in Sitka. Indeed, agency witnesses testified that the agency relied upon the appellant’s strengths and accomplishments as a Superintendent as the basis for directing her reassignment to the Liaison position in Anchorage," the board noted.
Furthermore, it added in its ruling in April 2013, "we find that it did not promote the efficiency of the service to direct the appellant to take the position in Anchorage against her will and to remove her from employment altogether when she declined the position. As a result of the agency’s actions, it lost an apparently valued and successful employee, and created two vacancies that the agency had to fill after her removal."
The federal government's Office of Personnel Management then appealed that ruling to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed the Merit Board, holding that the Park Service had legitimate reasons for reassigning Ms. Miller to Anchorage.
Yet the Park Service's determination to transfer Ms. Miller from Sitka was deemed "reprehensible" by U.S. Circuit Judge Evan Wallach. While Judge Wallach agreed with the court's majority that the Merit Systems Protection Board had wrongly approached Ms. Miller's case, he maintained that "it appears obvious to me that the agency’s actions were entirely pretextual and in bad faith."
Specifically, the Circuit judge wrote that the Park Service had crafted the job description for the Alaska Native Affairs Liaison in such a way " ... to obtain the desired result. It is obvious to me that the agency modified the standards and qualifications to make Ms. Miller the only person uniquely qualified, within the pool of employees that were considered for the position; that the agency’s actions were entirely pretextual; and that they were intended solely to present Ms. Miller with an improperly motivated Hobson’s choice. Such conduct by an agency of the United States is reprehensible."
In its ruling, reached in September, the Court of Appeals directed the Merit Systems Protection Board to reverse its decision. A final order supporting Ms. Miller's removal was filed on New Year's Eve and the Park Service appointed Neil Akana as acting superintendent for Sitka.
Comments
You do what Jarvis tells you to do or we will Ranger Danno you. Lockstep with the Fuhrer.
If NPS management treated a capable superintendent in this manner, imagine the hundreds of rank & file employees they have crucified. Is it any wonder NPS employee satisfaction scores are cratering?
I wonder what the rest of this story is, and what reasoning NPS had. My guess is that there is much more to this story than was mentioned in the article. After all, there are always at least two sides to a situation such as this.
This isn't just the National Park Service; it is now rife throughout the American workplace. In my field, university teaching, this is exactly how universities get rid of people who dare question the Administration. The Administration sets up some impossible standards and throws you out the door. Then they hire a part-timer, at half the salary and no benefits, and claim the protection of academic standards. Consequently, at our state university, there are 10 administrators for everyone (including part-timers) in the teaching faculty. Nationwide, 69 percent of all university teaching is done by part-timers, in contrast to 30 percent in the 1960s.
Bureuacracies go looking for trouble--only to find it as justification for their time. You want to change this? Good luck. To make matters worse, administrators in government can now hide behind affirmative action--substituting trouble-making for merit. Oh, they don't call it trouble-making. They call it protecting standards, but the only standard they protect is their job.
This is also partly to explain the loss of seasonal rangers across the park system at large. Educators are subversive; they talk about goals and ethics. A bureaucracy couldn't care less about those things.
There are hundreds of books and thousands of articles on the topic, but the bottom line is this: On the way up, America was known for making opportunities. On the way down, it is eating its own flesh. Why should we expect the Park Service to be immune--or any of us to be immune? 95 million Americans of working age have no job period. The bureaucrats know they can rule with fear.
NPS posts - especially on Superintendet level - are usually temporary, right? A bit like in the diplomatic service - you serve your term, then head on to another job. If Mrs Miller can't accept to change her job then maybe she should quit the NPS - instead of suing them.
I agree with TwoCollie. There must be more to this story. The plaintiff is claiming the NPS intentionally set her up for failure. If she was indeed "highly valued for her performance and skills". Why would they do that?
"If she was indeed "highly valued for her performance and skills". Why would they do that?" ecbuck.
It happens far more frequently than most would imagine. I have known other NPS employees, most in park management, who have had the same experience. A regional director and the superintendent of Glacier Bay NP were both removed from their positions in response to complaints and demands from the Alaska Congressional Delegation and commercial operators unhappy with their attempts to protect park resources. A superintendent of Denali also felt the sting of a "redirected assignment". All these individuals were acknowledged as excellent employees who were doing their job.
A "redirected assignment" is a bureaucratic tool used by the Park Service and other federal agencies to force an employee to move from a given assignment, often when the employee has incurred the wrath of political and/or commercial forces. The employee likely will never be officially told why they are being effectively sacked. They have no recorse but to accept the reassignment or be fired - even when he/she has excellent performance evaluations. All-too-often the reassignment is into a make-work, career dead end job where the employee is essentially destined to finish out their time until retirement. All superintendents and upper level management live under the cloud of possibly being "reassigned". It is an unspoken warning not to "make waves".
i'm really interested in learning more about this story. why did NPS want to railroad her out of there? was it really worth it to go through all this trouble?
also, is being an NPS superintendent that different from being a USFS Forest Supervisor? Forest Supes aren't just moved from place to place. They apply for jobs and accept them if they want to.