The $142,464-a-year deputy Streets and Sanitation commissioner who presides over Chicago’s Snow Command has been slapped with a 25-day suspension for allegedly using city employees to perform his personal errands on city time.
Inspector General Joe Ferguson had recommended that Managing Deputy Commissioner Bobby Richardson be fired for ordering his underlings to pick up and deliver his cigars, have his personal car washed and keeping the vehicle filled with gas.
The alleged abuses occurred “on a daily basis” over a period of years, wasting “hundreds of hours of city employee time for the personal benefit” of one boss, Ferguson concluded.
Instead, Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Tom Byrne reduced Richardson’s punishment to a 25-day suspension.
- In a written response to the inspector general’s report, Byrne argued that immediate termination “should be reserved for criminal conduct, serious threats to operations and/or safety or egregious administrative or ethical failings.”
- Criminal Conduct = Criminal Charges & Jail Time;
- Administrative Violations = Termination