On the Money Trail: Complaint Program Missing
By Jim Dooley, Advertiser Columnist
The Honolulu Advertiser - January 3, 2007

In late November, the city quietly agreed to pay former employee Philip English $400,000 to drop his whistleblower lawsuit.

English alleged in the suit that his superiors in the real property assessment office were improperly moonlighting for a private company on city time, and then retaliated against him when he complained about it.

The city, and English's superiors, denied the charges and paid the settlement money without admitting wrongdoing.

Testimony taken from one official about how the city handles whistleblowing complaints is what's really interesting about the case.

That official, Denise Tsukayama, testified in a sworn deposition in September that there is no citywide program to handle complaints from employees about wrongdoing. Employees who want to report misconduct can call the phone number established by the city for public complaints about potholes that need fixing, Tsukayama testified.

An affirmative action officer in the city's Department of Human Resources, Tsukayama was honored as the city's "manager of the year" in 2001.

She said in her September testimony that the city has established training programs for supervisors and employees on handling whistleblower complaints, but only in a few departments: the ones that have already been hit with complaints.

The first such program, at the Honolulu Police Department, began three years ago and was just completed. Planning for it began after the city paid $612,000 in 2001 to settle sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuits filed by former HPD employee Sharon Black.

Five years before the Black settlement, the city paid $1.1 million to settle another sex harassment/retaliation case filed against the HPD by former officer Clarissa Barta.

Barta said at the time that the HPD had "an unwritten code of conduct which discourages and punishes the reporting of misconduct by fellow police officers."

After the Barta and Black payments came a $650,000 settlement in 2003 in a whistleblower suit filed by HPD officer Kenneth Kamakana. The settlement figures don't include millions of dollars more that the city, or its insurance company, paid in legal defense fees. Just in the Kamakana case alone, the city paid $1 million in legal fees and expenses and its insurance carrier paid at least $1 million more.

Now there's a new lawsuit, recently filed in federal court, by three HPD officers that alleges grievous and continued sexual harassment of one female officer in particular and retaliation against other officers. The defendants in that suit have denied the allegations.

Tsukayama was asked in her deposition if she thought the city's training program adequately deals with the problem of retaliation against whistleblowers. "I don't think it's adequate," she said.

She was asked if she has "expressed that opinion either to the head of Human Resources or to the mayor." "To the head of Human Resources," she said. "I've had three Human Resources directors since I've been there and I've had that discussion with all three."

Human Resources director Ken Nakamatsu said yesterday the city is developing a citywide program to deal with whistleblower protection laws. And employees with complaints about wrongdoing can make them to the mayor through the "Tell It to the Mayor" program or directly to law enforcement, he said.

"In a perfect world, we would have the resources to take exhaustive, repeated steps to ensure against any possible problem in the workplace," Nakamatsu said.

"In reality, we do what we can with the resources available."

If you know that a particular money trail will lead to boondoggle, excessive spending or white elephants, reach Jim Dooley at 535-2447 or jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com