Union: Suspend Baltimore Co.'s Homan

Baltimore County (Map, News) - Labor leaders said they plan to ask Baltimore County administrators to suspend a top official until allegations he fired an employee who caught him engaged in an office affair are resolved.

Union activists encouraged lawmakers to postpone a vote scheduled for today to approve Administrative Officer Fred Homan’s four-year term appointment to the position — and a $36,000 raise from the salary he received as the county’s longtime budget director.

“I would hope they would slow things down and maybe place him in an inactive capacity until they get a handle on what’s going on with the lawsuit,” said Cole Weston, president of the county’s police union. “I think the council would reserve the right not to go forward with [confirmation] if it were any other department head.”

Miriam Grice, 55, was fired two weeks ago in what was the culmination of retaliatory acts involving Homan since 1999, said her attorney, Kathleen Cahill. In one instance, Grice accidentally interrupted Homan and Assistant County Attorney Suzanne Berger after hours, according to the lawsuit.

County officials have dismissed the claims as the product of a “disgruntled ex-employee” and declined to make Homan and Berger — who sat on a panel that demoted Grice — available for comment. The alleged love affair calls into question Berger’s ability to independently advise the county’s retirement board, which Homan chairs, Weston said.

It was Homan, another union leader said, who recently pressed extending the minimum retirement age and increasing health care premiums for general employees to keep spending down. “It’s ridiculous,” said Jim Miller, president of the Baltimore County Federation of Public Employees. “If it was me, my promotion would be off the table and I’d probably be out the door suspended until it was all over.”

Homan’s $190,000 salary, if approved, will be closer to that of other administrative officers in the region, county spokesman Don Mohler said.

jmalarkey@baltimoreexaminer.com

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