Editorial: Ousted CareerSource leader does not deserve severance
Published: February 28, 2018
Updated: February 28, 2018 at 06:04 PM
The CEO of CareerSource Pinellas and CareerSource Tampa Bay deserved to be fired for practices that sparked multiple investigations and destroyed public trust in the job placement agencies. Yet the CareerSource board members also foolishly decided Edward Peachey is entitled to five months of severance pay. Firing Peachey while awarding him a generous parting gift fails to recognize the jeopardy he has put these public agencies in and the erosion of public trust in their mission.
Peachey was at the helm for years as the agencies reported placing people in jobs who never sought CareerSource help. A Tampa Bay Times investigation found that CareerSource asked local companies for the names of all their new hires — not just CareerSource clients — and took credit for “matching” those people in jobs. Those inflated figures have sparked investigations by local, state and federal agencies that award CareerSource millions of public dollars to help people find jobs.
In addition, the Times found that Peachey promoted a woman with whom he appeared to have a close personal relationship and signed off on hiring three of her relatives. Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri has accused CareerSource of forging his signature on documents and reporting placing people in Sheriff’s Office jobs that don’t exist.
So there was plenty of justification for the CareerSource Tampa Bay board in Hillsborough to cut ties with Peachey when it met Monday, followed by the Pinellas board on Wednesday. But it was dumbfounding when a majority of members on both boards voted to pay Peachey five months of his roughly $290,000 annual salary if he agreed not to sue. The board members argued, unconvincingly, that severance was appropriate because the investigations have not proven Peachey did anything wrong. If the boards are so concerned about being fair to Peachey, why not at least wait until the investigations are complete before deciding to write him a check?
Credit Hillsborough County Commissioner Sandra Murman at CareerSource Tampa Bay, Pinellas Commission chair Ken Welch and CareerSource Pinellas board chair Jack Geller for opposing the severance payments. Said Geller, “Mr. Peachey’s actions created a toxic workplace and low morale.” It’s also instructive that Peachey’s attorney, Marion Hale, has portrayed her client as the victim of a “vendetta” and a “witch hunt,” chalked up the faulty placement figures to a coding error, criticized the Times’ reporting and filed multiple public records requests for unrelated information regarding Welch. Screaming foul and attacking is a familiar strategy when the facts are not favorable to your side.
Taxpayers may yet get a reprieve if the state Department of Economic Opportunity determines Peachey is a public employee and entitled to a maximum of only six weeks severance pay, voiding the boards’ decisions. Even so, that would not restore public trust in the board members who failed to provide adequate oversight of Peachey’s management and then provided him an awfully soft landing when they finally shoved him out.
