Sunday, February 14, 1999
No evidence backs move to oust police chief
Buelterman never got written review
BY KRISTINA GOETZ
The Cincinnati Enquirer
FLORENCE — He hasn't had a formal, written performance review in three years, and three grievances filed against him in 1998 concerned placement of officers on special assignments.
Those are the highlights of the personnel file of Florence Police Chief Paul Buelterman, who is fighting to keep his job.
Allegations of low department morale and that the chief doesn't listen to his officers have been the only two complaints made public, but those concerns were not specifically addressed in the personnel file.
The chief has refused to resign as requested by Mayor Diane Ewing Whalen in January, and talks collapsed last week.
The city is now investigating bringing charges against the chief in anticipation of dismissing him.
A review of Chief Buelterman's personnel file reveals:
• In 1998, three grievances were filed against chief Buelterman by officers under his supervision, all relating to perceived flaws in the promo tion process for special assignments.
• He has not had a formal written performance review since he became chief in 1995, though city officials claim there has been a more informal process.
The file also reveals numerous commendations and letters of praise from his years with the Cincinnati police, but no letters of praise and no complaints from the public in his time in Florence.
Chief Buelterman reports directly to City Coordinator Roger Rolfes, who said he changed the evaluation form about three years ago from a written one with clear objectives to a verbal one that ad dresses issues as they arise.
He also admitted falling behind on evaluations because of his workload.
In light of the case against the chief, Mr. Rolfes says he doesn't think that any comments in writing would have affected the situation.
“I don't think it would have made much difference because if I still did the written evaluations at that time it would have just formalized what I had spoken,” he said.
That verbalization was that Chief Buelterman's performance appeared “basically acceptable,” he said.
Mr. Rolfes said he changed his mind about that job performance when additional in formation was brought to his attention in late November, although he said he did not meet with the chief to address the concerns before Ms. Whalen asked for the chief's resignation.
Ms. Whalen said she was unaware that the chief had not received an evaluation.
“It's unfortunate that the evaluation process has gotten lost in the shuffle,” she said. “But we can't re-create the past or the paperwork that goes with that.
“We need to see that the paperwork gets done now.”
Joe Condit, the chief's lawyer, said he thinks it's significant that there is no written record of his client's perform ance.
“They need to have some criteria if they're going to say he's inefficient,” he said. “Certainly evaluations over the years would either show he was or wasn't.”
Mr. Condit added that he believes there is no evidence of inefficiency.
“It's based on some other criteria,” he said.
But Chief Buelterman said formal evaluations aren't what's important to him.
“What's important to me is that I was never told I did a bad job until Jan. 6, when I was asked to resign,” he said. “I don't know what to think. I don't know what I've done wrong.”
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