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CITY, ND – (NewsDakota.com) Former Barnes County Social Services Director Rick Bolonchuk resigned in February after serving in the position since August of 2015.
Bolonchuk came under fire in January after a small number of disgruntled employees, of whom he had been addressing their performance failures with, accused him of creating a hostile work environment.
The board stated in a story published earlier this year that they were “not able to substantiate those accusations,” and then decided to extend his contract.
In a news release Bolonchuk said he resigned due to two major issues.
One issue was that he was ordered by the board to publish a statement through the local newspapers stating that the Social Services agency was essentially problem free when he knew it was not true. He stated “I refused to do so because of the significant staff performance failures that were negatively impacting clients, family members, and the agencies reputation with external stakeholders such as the Department of Human Services, and other County Social services agencies that had complained to me about some of the social work and administrative staff failing to do their jobs according to professional standards, and from complaints of other agency employees and not being allowed to address those issues in an effective, approved and timely manner.
The second issue was the fact that the commission and board allowed anonymous accusations and defamatory name calling against me from a handful of disgruntled employees that I had been confronting about their performance failures. The Commission and Board acted upon them without utilizing the county’s grievance procedure to allow me to present my side of the story, and to fairly assess whether or not the accusations were true and what prompted them. Instead they acted upon the accusations without my input by conducting a special Social Services Board meeting where they discussed the possibility of terminating my employment as Director. I also thought it was strange that the Special Social Services Board meeting to address the complaints was held on a federal holiday when the county court house was advertised as closed for the day in the Valley City Times Record newspaper. At that meeting some board members initiated a vote to terminate my employment but failed to get a majority vote to do that and instead unanimously voted to extend my contract.”
Bolonchuk said “When the commission and board circumvent the county’s grievance procedure in responding to anonymous and defaming accusations about other employees as they did towards myself, and instead responded in an arbitrary, enabling and biased manor, it compromises the entire agencies relational and morale integrity, and potentially jeopardizes all county employees well being and sense of fairness, knowing that they might not be afforded the fairness protections provided by the due process that the county grievance procedure provides each employee, when accusations are made by other employees against them. That policy does not allow accusations to be made anonymously, as these were. When the grievance procedure is circumvented as it was in my situation it puts every employee at a serious risk that their employment may be terminated simply because another employee made an anonymous accusation against them that may not be true and may not be thoroughly and fairly investigated.”
“I felt that to continue to follow leadership that would circumvent county policy, order me to make statements to the public that I believed were not true, and rebuked me for trying to effectively address the serious staff performance issues according to Department of Human Services best practices, (one board member angrily said to me “stop calling DHS.”) that were plaguing the agency and its reputation, it would be grossly unethical for myself or any professional administrator to follow that leadership. He stated that employees that were doing a great job said to him that the issues that he was trying to address effectively had been long standing with the agency and that they were grateful that someone was finally attempting to correct them. “In addition shortly after I took on the position of Director I heard from one Department of Human Services official who has had oversight responsibilities with Barnes County Social Services for a number of years, say that there were long standing “problems at Barnes County (Social Services). I heard the same complaints from some of the Regional County Directors as well. I asked in my job interview for the Director position, if there were any internal or external problems with the agency and the response was “No.”
Bolonchuk also stated that on the front of the county courthouse engraved in stone it states the Barnes County Courthouse motto is“to perpetuate civic order and justice.” He then stated “If the leadership of the county circumvents the county’s own policies whenever it chooses to, how will anyone in Barnes County be certain that civic order and justice will be consistently carried out in matters concerning them..?”
Barnes County Commissioners Mike Metcalf and John Froehlich who also serve on the Social Services Board told NewsDakota.com that Bolonchuk has a right to make a response but both of the county boards are moving forward to fill the Director position.
Bolonchuk served as the Barnes County Social Services Director for 7 months before stepping down on February 16th. Below is his letter of resignation.