The Oregon Employment Department said Wednesday it has hired an outside attorney to investigate allegations of discriminatory behavior in the administration of the state’s already delayed program for paid family and medical leave.
“These concerns are something I take extremely seriously,” said David Gerstenfeld, the employment department’s acting director. In addition to the investigation, he said the department will bring in outside equity and inclusion experts to review the department’s practices.
“Equity and inclusion is not optional at our agency. It’s core to what we do,” Gerstenfeld said on his regular media call Wednesday. He declined to specify the nature of the complaints or say whether the department has taken any disciplinary action so far. The department has not identified the law firm that it has hired to investigate allegations of discriminatory behavior.
The allegation represents another potential setback at the beleaguered employment department, which was overwhelmed by a surge in jobless claims during the pandemic and hamstrung by obsolete technology.
Gov. Kate Brown fired Gerstenfeld’s predecessor last year, the third consecutive director of Oregon’s employment department to be forced from the job. In the years after the Great Recession, the employment department was beset by infighting and internal dysfunction. One state report said employees reported “bullying” behavior by their colleagues.
The latest allegations could further complicate the not-yet-operational paid leave program, but Gerstenfeld said he doesn’t anticipate any further delays in its implementation.
Oregon lawmakers approved the family and medical leave program in 2019, which gives 12 weeks of paid time off to new parents, domestic violence victims and people caring for a sick family member.
The program was due to begin January 2023 but lawmakers delayed its implementation by nine months during the last legislative session at the employment department’s request. The employment department said its enormous workload during the pandemic made it impossible to meet the original timeline.
On Wednesday, Gerstenfeld said the new paid family and medical leave program has lost several key employees recently and that exodus has made it clear to the department that changes have to be made. Eight employees have left the program in total.
The program’s acting director, Gerhard Taeubel, is planning to leave, too.
Patty Jo Angelini, a spokesperson for the employment department, said Wednesday that Taeubel came out of retirement to help launch the paid family and medical leave program and had told employees in August that he would be retiring again. She said the department is in the final stage of recruiting for Taeubel’s replacement.
Angelini said other employees had left for a variety of reasons but acknowledged that the culture within the program had factored into the exodus.
“For some, it is a new career opportunity, others retirement, and with some, it is a mix of factors,” Angelini said. “Unfortunately, another factor that some people have raised is concerns about whether the culture lives up to the high expectations we have, and that the public has, for both building an inclusive, equitable program, and also reflecting that equity and inclusion within the PFMLI team itself.”
Gerstenfeld met with remaining program staff Wednesday morning to convey his expectations.
One of the employees leaving is Acting Deputy Division Director Ashley Carson Cottingham, who wrote in an Oct. 5 email to Gerstenfeld, Taeubel and the Employment Department’s Deputy Director Jeannine Beatrice that she planned to leave the job and was withdrawing from consideration to be the next director of the paid family and medical leave program. Carson Cottingham did not mention any specifics in her email and declined to provide any when reached by phone Wednesday evening.
“I applied for the director role and my understanding was I was the top candidate,” Carson Cottingham said. “And I just did some thinking — I think it was the weekend after some of the interview processes had occurred — and decided to withdraw ... It’s just not a healthy environment and I didn’t think I could be successful leading the program.”
-- Mike Rogoway; mrogoway@oregonian.com; @rogoway
-- Jamie Goldberg; jgoldberg@oregonian.com; @jamiebgoldberg
-- Hillary Borrud; hborrud@oregonian.com; @hborrud
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Oregon reports allegations of discriminatory behavior in new paid family and medical leave program - OregonLive
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